


someday (i'll make it out of here)

by Pachamama9



Series: all night (or a hundred years) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Feels, Blackmail, Captivity, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Lots of it, M/M, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Post-Civil War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Torture, Self-Sacrifice, Sleep Deprivation, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Whump, Torture, Whump, it's long but so worth it, mentions of skip - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-01-30 04:16:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 53,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pachamama9/pseuds/Pachamama9
Summary: Tony Stark is a survivor of horrors. He’s suffered much more than the average person.And before now, Tony thought he had intimate knowledge of the dark intricacies of horror.But on April 7th, 2018, nearly a year after the Avengers broke up, Tony found out just how wrong he was.He never imagined the horrific pain of watching Peter Parker bleed. Every. Single. Day.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: all night (or a hundred years) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544314
Comments: 94
Kudos: 168





	1. my boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This fic has everything. Pain, terror, family, survival, hurt, comfort, sadness, happiness, relationships, conflict, and, most importantly, love. If you start reading, be ready to dive into this long, long fic. But it will be worth it. 
> 
> Suit up. It's go time.
> 
> _He's, by the look of it, young, and the fact that the new guy's unconscious, bloodied, and locked to the Chair by his wrists, ankles, and torso makes everything worse. “He’s…” Scott gasps, and Charlie’s smile only widens. “He’s just a kid. You made me track down a… a… teenager?_

Tony Stark is a survivor of horrors. Countless horrors. He’s survived a cold childhood, the simultaneous loss of both of his parents, kidnapping by terrorists, torture, open heart surgery without anesthetic, betrayal by his most trusted business partner, chemical poisoning, post-traumatic stress disorder, Pepper’s kidnapping, the alien attack on New York, his AI’s sadistic rebellion, the near-destruction of the nation of Sokovia, the betrayal of Steve Rogers, a battle with the Winter Soldier, the subsequent collapse of the Avengers… He’s suffered much more than the average person.

Before now, Tony thought he had intimate knowledge of the dark intricacies of horror.

But on April 7th, 2018, nearly a year after the Avengers broke up, Tony found out how painfully wrong he was.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 2:11 PM**

“We can’t have ice cream now, honey,” Maggie Paxton reminds her daughter, just as seven-year-old Cassie pouts, sprawling her arms out on the table in protest. “You’ll spoil your dinner for later! We’re eating early tonight.” Ice cream at any time of day is always Scott’s way of lighting up Cassie’s life, but Maggie is firm this time. Cassie will see Scott next weekend; she can eat ice cream nonstop then.

Jim Paxton taps his stepdaughter’s nose. “C’mon, Cassie, we’re having ramen tonight! You know how much you love ramen!”

Cassie giggles and tries to catch his hand before it leaves her face. “I love ramen!” she squeals, throwing her hands into the air. “Ramen, ramen, ramen…” She lapses into a sing-song rendition of the word “ramen,” over and over again, spinning around on her stool. “Ramen, ramen, ramen!”

Jim and Maggie share an amused glance. “I know, honey,” laughs Maggie, “we had it last week, too.”

“You know what we can do, though?” suggests Jim. He took Friday off to spend with his family, and it has honestly been the best decision he’s made in a while. Spending time with Cassie makes his heart swell; he knows she’s Scott Lang’s daughter, not his, and he knows he’ll never be her true father, but Cassie sees him as this glowing person in her life, and at least he has that. To him, Cassie is every bit his daughter. “Take a trip to the zoo!”

Cassie spins around again to look at Jim, her eyes wide with anticipation. “Really?”

“Really, really,” replies Maggie, grinning. “You wanna go?”

Cassie beams. Both Maggie and Jim know that Cassie loves the zoo more than anything. Seeing the animals always sends her screaming around the place.

At the sound of the doorbell ringing, Jim gets up from the table to answer the door, and Cassie clambers into Maggie’s lap, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck. “Thank you, thank you!” Maggie can hear Jim speaking to someone at the door; vaguely, she wonders who it is. The mailman, probably. “You think we can see the belugas this time? I wanna see the belugas!”

Maggie kisses her daughter’s forehead. “Of course we can, honey. What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t let you see the belugas?” She wasn’t sure what belugas were, to be honest; some kind of dolphin? As a thirty-seven year old woman, she should probably know this by know. “Those are like dolphins, right?”

Cassie looks scandalized. “Mommy, they’re _whales_!” she exclaims. “They’re white, with _big_ heads, and they can dive up to two thousand feet below the water, that’s what Miss Smith told me!” She continues with all the facts she has about belugas, her new favorite animal.

At the door, Jim’s voice is loud now, echoing down the hall to the kitchen. “—telling you, we didn’t order a package. You’ve got the wrong—” His voice comes to a strange halt, followed by a massive _thump_, so startling that even Cassie looks up from her rant about beluga whales.

“Jim?” Maggie calls out, concerned now; Cassie hops down from her lap. “Are you okay? Do you—”

As she turns the corner, she sees them: Jim on the floor, red dripping down the side of his face, and two men and a woman crowded around him, each wearing a UPS uniform and wielding a gun.

Like a rough slap across the face, Maggie’s terror strikes her hard and fast. She shoves Cassie behind her—

“—there’s the kid! Grab her, quick—”

—and screams for her to run; her mind screeches, _get Cassie out, get her out of here,_ and she grabs the first thing she sees: Cassie’s tennis racket, and blazing pain tears up her arm, and the handle slips from her fingers. _Shot._ She’s been _shot_. She grabs the next item, an expensive, ceramic bowl, from the shelf beside her; as a hand wraps around her wrist, she spins and smashes it against her attacker’s head with an animalistic scream. She scrambles to her feet again, something hot spilling down her forearm, and leaps into the kitchen, heart pounding, searching for her next weapon, _anything_, leaping for the rack of kitchen knives—

“Hey!” A heavy blow to her side, and she is on the ground again, coughing and wheezing and praying that Cassie escaped. An arm around her neck, locking her in a stronghold, and then there’s metal against her temple. “Get the fuck up, get _up!_” Maggie struggles against the person behind her, grabbing a handful of red hair and yanking hard, scraping at skin with her fingernails. “_Ow!_ You fucking _bitch!_” Hard metal slams against her temple, and Maggie’s brain slips away.

Blood roars in her ears. _Cassie, Cassie, not my little girl!_ Muffled screaming: “Get the fuck out here, Cassie, or I’ll kill your precious mommy! You want that? You want your mom dead on the floor? I’ll kill this bitch! I’ll kill her, I will! Cassie! _Cassie!_”

Maggie clings to the one bit of lucidity she has and cries out, “No, Cassie, don’t—”

And pain crashes over the side of her head, a torment of black waves, and then nothing.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 4:33 PM**

Another fist slams into Scott’s mouth, and pain blossoms across his jaw. He spits on the ground, a splatter of red, and glares at the man in front of him. “Fuck you,” he says, and he’s surprised by his own profanity. He gave up swearing once he found one-year-old Cassie shouting “Shit!” every time she wanted one of her stuffed toys. But now, after four hours of this angry motherfucker and his brass knuckles, he’s about to snap. He’s trying to stay positive, but the fact that no one even knows he’s gone is really grating on his mind right now. He doesn’t even have a plan to escape; currently, his only plan is to annoy this guy until he breaks.

The man snarls and launches another fist at him, furious. “You think this is helping anyone, Lang?” he growls. “You wanna be ripped to pieces?”

Scott can’t remember what this guy’s name is. Max? Mark? “Well, it wasn’t on my schedule, Martin, but I mean, if you’ve got nothing else to do—”

Another fist, this time to his knee, and Scott gasps with the sudden pain of it. That was more than a punch. He heard something _snap_. “You and your fucking jokes,” says Probably-Martin. “I’m sick of them. How about I take out your fucking tongue this time, huh? How’d you like that?”

Scott shrugs, as nonchalantly as one could while tied to a chair and aching from hours of torture. “It’s the twenty-first century, buddy; I’d just get myself one of those Stephen Hawking things, maybe learn some sign langua—_ah!_”

Pain surges through his foot, so horrible that he can barely breathe, and Scott screams, his cocky smile dropping from his face. When he finally gathers himself, taking shaky gasps of air, the man smirks, victorious. “Next time I hear another one of your jokes,” snaps Probably-Martin, “I’ll smash your hand instead.”

Scott bites the inside of his cheek, just to keep himself from crying out again. He doesn’t want to look down at the damage that has been just done to his right foot, but he _has_ to. He takes one glance...and immediately regrets it. The pain of his new injury seems to grow the longer he stares; Probably-Martin stepped on his foot so hard that it looks broken and smashed and _wrong_; Scott’s hands tighten around the arms of the chair. _Stay strong_, he reminds himself. _Someone will come save you. Hank or Hope or the police or even the Avengers. And then you’ll be okay._

There’s another man in the room now, one with a brown beard and wild eyes. Bearded-Psycho, Scott dubs him, proud of himself. He smiles weakly, lifting his head to watch Bearded-Psycho and Probably-Martin argue. “I told you not to touch his hands, Mason!” _Ah,_ thinks Scott. _Mason._ That was the man’s name. “It’s not like we can do this for him! We need those fucking hands!”

“I didn’t touch his hands!” Mason protests.

As they argue, Scott lets out a shaky breath. He liked to think of himself as one of those happy-go-lucky, jokester superheroes, like Iron Man or even that Spiderguy from Queens, but right now all he doesn’t feel like a superhero. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he is _terrified_. He shoves the fear to the back of his head with every ounce of composure he has—if he loses his sense of humor, he’ll lose his mind. Somehow, cracking jokes at his abuser makes it seem less grave in his mind, like he can break free of his bonds at any moment. Humor keeps his hope alive and burning in his chest.

“And his head!” Bearded-Psycho snarls, and Scott flinches in his bonds. “We need his head!” _Shit_, he thinks, embarrassed at his involuntary display of fear. The only way to fight back against these guys is to laugh in the face of fear, but here he is, jumping like a little kid watching a horror movie. “Why the fuck would you think it’s a good idea to smash his head around? He’s practically bleeding out of his ears!”

“Charlie,” Mason attempts, “I didn’t—”

Bearded-Psycho (or Charlie or whatever his name is) is _huge_ compared to Mason, so when he suddenly grabs the other man and slams his head against the wall—“Shit! Charlie, wait!”—until there’s blood running down his face, he makes it look easy, like beating up a kid.

Scott doesn’t feel the victory of watching his torturer bleed against the wall; all he feels is the electrifying anticipation of _pain_ spiking through his body. This man, this Bearded-Psycho… He could crush Scott if he wanted to. Scott tries to make himself as small as possible. Any movement he makes will surely turn Charlie’s violent rage onto him. But even as Scott wills his body to stone, Charlie still turns around, wipes his hands on his jeans, and trains his eyes on Scott.

_Fuck_. Ready for another blow, probably ten times more painful than Mason’s, Scott winces, tensing his whole body and squeezing his eyes shut. Where will he hit him: his stomach, his legs, his feet?

A low chuckle greets him instead. “Look, Lang,” says Charlie calmly, as Scott opens his eyes with caution, “we’ve given you chance after chance to agree to our terms.”

Scott coughs. Yeah, he remembers the terms. It was the first thing that Mason said to him. “Sorry,” says Scott, laughing nervously. “Felonies aren’t on my to-do list, Chuck. No thanks.”

Charlie’s smile is nerve-wrecking, like Scott’s submission is inevitable, and Scott squirms, uncomfortable. Pain swirls in his foot, and he grits his teeth. Sweat trickles down his back. “If you say so, Lang.” His voice is calm. _Too_ calm. Standing up abruptly, he shouts at Mason, who’s currently on the floor, moaning about his head. “Keep going, Mason. Don’t stop until I come back. And for fuck’s sake, leave his hands and his head.”

Mason pushes himself into a sitting position and groans a reluctant “fine.” He’s angrier now, fueled by pain as well as frustration, and Scott swallows hard. When Charlie finally leaves the room, Mason growls, “Fuck you, Lang. You see what you did to me?”

Dread drenching his thoughts, Scott grits his teeth. “I’m pretty sure American Psycho’s the one who busted your head open, ‘cause he’s not the one tied to a chai—”

Another debilitating punch smashes into his body, this time cracking a rib and splattering across his chest. As Mason rubs his knuckles, Scott struggles for air and prays that someone will save him soon. He doesn’t know how long he can stand this.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 5:01 PM**

As the ringing stops and goes to voicemail, Julia Keene sighs and puts her phone down on the table. It’s the third time that night she’s tried to call Charlie, and still nothing. Although she’s a police officer and he went off the rails years ago, she still loves him more than anything. He always spared time for her, at least for a text or a phone call, every couple of days.

But Julia hasn’t spoken to Charlie in a month. It’s been too long since she’d talked to him, and she’s _worried_. Sure, Julia is a thirty-three, twice-married, working mother of two living in Queens, and Charlie is a twenty-eight year old drug addict living on the streets with a couple of prison notches on his belt, but Julia needs to know he is safe. He is her brother. Her baby brother. It was always Julia and Charlie against the world, and even though they split off years ago… She rubs her temples and tries not to think about it too much.

“You called him again?” says someone behind her. It’s her husband of ten years, Cristian. His dark hair falls over his eyes as he slides into the chair beside her, sliding his hand over her back and rubbing gently.

Julia falls into his touch, taking his other hand in hers. The kids are at school; Leila, the fourteen-year-old, is at musical rehearsal while Jaime, their eight-year-old, is at baseball practice. Leila is her daughter from her first marriage: she married her high school sweetheart, Damien, straight out of high school and had Leila a year later before discovering that he was a deadbeat drunk with a long history of violence. She met Cristian a couple years after divorcing Damien, and had Jaime two years after that. Now that she has the apple pie, picture-perfect life she’s always wanted (loving husband, healthy children, excellent career), it’s more than painful to lose Charlie.

Cristian keeps rubbing her back in slow circles. “It’s been weeks,” she sighs. “_Weeks_, Cristian. And I… I know something bad happened to him. He’s never gone this long without talking to me.”

Cristian shifts in his chair. “Look at me, _mi vida_,” he says, voice gentle. “I don’t know too much about your brother, but I do know that he’s a mess. He lives his life from one fix to another.” He squeezes her hand. “I know he loves you, but he’s a slave to his life of drugs and...crime. And it’s not your job to check in on him all the time. He’s an adult, Julia, and he can make his own decisions. And he’s always fine. He’ll be _fine_.”

Julia nods into Cristian’s shoulder. “I know, I know, he’ll be fine.”

Cristian smiles and gives her a quick kiss on the lips. “You okay?”

She nods again, this time meeting his eyes. She’s still unsure, but at least she feels better about the whole situation. She loves Charlie, but Cristian’s right. He can make his own decisions.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 6:37 PM**

Peter Parker has spent most of the past month in Tony’s lab , working on what they like to call “Project Kevlar,” after the substance that made bulletproof vests. Peter himself came up with the project, recognizing that many of the lower-income families of New York who experienced danger on a daily basis felt helpless to the violence they experienced and couldn’t call the police for help. Police officers often left the most vulnerable of the city’s community—poor, gang-ridden, and homeless citizens—exposed to harm.

“It’s like what they use on college campuses,” Peter had explained, pride lighting up across his face. “The blue light system, you know?”

Tony had chuckled lightly. “What do you know about college, kid? You’re only—”

“I’m sixteen now, Mr. Stark,” Peter had reminded him, “and I’ve been on, like, three college visits! I know what it’s like!”

The mayor of New York gave Stark Industries explicit permission to implement the system in the city; it was simple but brilliant, really. They would place tiny alert buttons all over the city in public areas, each fitted to survive any weather conditions, and people could press the alert buttons to call for help.

Currently, they’re working together on a vital part of the system: the GSS, or the gunfire sensory system that could would automatically alarm them if a gun was used within the immediate vicinity of the alarm button. Tony is sprawled out on the couch, typing furiously on his laptop, as Peter bends over the worktable, a soldering iron in one hand and a circuit board in the other. To the left of Peter, a record player screeches ‘Killer Queen’ as the dark-haired boy nods his head to the beat.

Glancing away from his screen, Tony frowns, temporarily halting his humming. “Peter!”

The dark-haired boy’s hands jerks at the sudden noise. “Geez, Mr. Stark, a little warning next time!” A huff of frustration escapes him. “Now, I gotta solder that all over again.”

Tony throws a pair of goggles at him in response.

“Hey!” Peter protests, catching them only inches from his face.

“You know what I said, kiddo,” Tony announces. “Rule Number One: No Soldering Without Goggles.”

“I thought Rule Number One was No One Touches My Records,” Peter shoots back, chucking a pen at the older man. “And, by the way, if I hear another Queen song come on, I’m literally gonna throw that thing out the window.”

Tony sits up straight, mouth open in mock surprise. “How dare you! Queen is the best! Queen is… It’s the greatest band to ever walk the planet!”

Peter rolls his eyes. “You know, Mr. Stark, sometimes I forget how old you are! Listen to some AJR or something, come on!” But nonetheless, Peter slides the goggles on his face.

Before he can grab the soldering iron again, however, Pepper pokes her head into the lab, knocking gently on the glass. “Tony? We’ve gotta get going soon, we—” Her eyes land on the teenager perched at her fiancé’s worktable. “Oh, Peter! I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Peter stammers. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your night, Ms. Potts.”

Pepper laughs, sitting down on the couch next to Tony. “That’s totally fine, Peter. You know you’re welcome here anytime.” Closing Tony’s laptop with one manicured hand (he protests with an irritated “hey!”), she turns back to the teenager. “You do know it’s a Friday night, don’t you? Shouldn’t you be out with your friends?”

Peter scratches the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly. “Yeah… It’s just I had this new idea for Project Kevlar, and I asked Mr. Stark, and he said it was okay, and…” He glances nervously at Tony. “Sorry. I’ll be gone in a few minutes, Ms. Potts.”

Pepper smiles gently at him. “You know you can call me Pepper; I’m not _that_ old.”

Peter shrugs awkwardly. “The only adult I call by their first name is May! She’d kill me if I ever called Mr. Stark” —he cringed— “_Tony_.”

Tony chuckles, throwing his arm across the back of the couch. “Well, we’ll work on that one, kiddo.”

Pepper clicks her tongue. “As much as I’d love to watch you waste your childhood in Tony’s lab,” she tells Peter, giving him a playful look, “Tony and I have somewhere we need to be.”

“Where?” chorus Peter and Tony.

Pepper gives Tony the stern I-told-you-this-months-ago look that she always uses. “The charity gala? It’s for the Yemeni Women’s Union.”

“Ah, right… the charity thing.” He pouts. “Do we have to go?”

“Yes!”

Pepper tosses his tie in his lap as Peter scrambles to stuff his supplies back into his backpack. “Sorry again, Ms. Potts! Have fun at the gala, Mr. Stark!”

“It’s _Tony_, kid!” he declares, just as the spider-kid jumps to the door.

Peter gives him a mischievous smile, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. “Bye, _Mr. Stark._”

Pepper’s still laughing to herself when the door closes behind the kid.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 7:09 PM**

Sometimes, Charlie’s guilt aches like an old gunshot wound, sending painful spikes of regret spilling down his throat. Sometimes, his plan feels like shame, not pride, so he has to force himself to continue, one foot in front of the other. It’s in those moments when he needs his fix the most: angel dust, most days, sometimes with a spike of something else.

He pops a couple pills in his mouth and swallows hard. His sister once told him that taking drugs like this means he loses control over his body, that he relinquishes his throne to the drug instead of his brain, but what the hell does she know? Charlie is more in control than he’d ever been.

Charlie feels a warm buzz crackle through his bones, a familiar sensation, as the pill he’d just taken finally starts to work. Charlie lets out a relieved sigh, laughing a little. Everything seems to come back into focus: the plan, the future, the people… He knows. He _knows_.

Renee, his wife, will be back in a few minutes with the one thing they need to force that asshole Scott Lang to do what they wanted. And once they have Scott under their control, everything will fall into place, like dominoes.

From the other side of their base, he hears the door creak open, followed by the sound of a child crying and a woman yelling. “Charlie? Charlie!”

When he stands up, he staggers a little, but he quickly recovers, moving to meet Renee and the rest of them at the entrance to the base.

Renee has the girl by her waist as she squirms, crying through her gag and wiggling her bound wrists. “Sorry I’m late,” she says. “Traffic was terrible.”

Charlie grins. Finally. “You got her!”

“Yep,” she says. “Those motherfucking parents were a pain in my ass, but I still got her. Any luck with Lang?”

He shakes his head as the little girl lets out a pained wail. “He just cracks jokes and refuses to help us.”

Renee smirks and shoves the girl to her feet. “Walk, kid. _Walk_.”

Now that Charlie has a good look at the kid, she looks a lot like Lang. Scott Lang’s Asian features are prevalent in the kid’s hair and face, and that defiant look in her eyes had to come from him. Her dark hair hangs scraggly around her head, and her face is red and swollen with tears. It hits Charlie, all at once, how _young_ she is: probably six or seven years old. Her face is so full, her eyes so big, her body so tiny… He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter how young she is. They need to get Scott Lang on board, and Cassie Paxton, or Lang or whatever the hell her name is, is their ticket.

He leads Renee to what they’re starting to call the Room, the place where the whole show’s gonna happen. It’s a small space: ten feet wide and ten feet long, with a metal chair bolted into the center. On one side is a sink and a toilet, and the other has a folding table of various weapons and other materials.

Currently, Scott Lang is strapped to the chair in the center, his head hung low, murmuring to himself. Mason is taking another swing for Scott’s knee when Renee yells, “Hey, we’ve got her!”

The back of the chair is facing them, so when Scott lifts his head to the sound of voices, he can’t see Charlie, Renee, or Cassie. But Mason can. His shoulders slump in relief as Renee shoves the kid into the Room. “Finally!”

Lang’s looking terrible: his bruised face has swollen and darkened, his legs are damaged beyond repair, and it looks like at one point he pissed himself. Yet still he manages to conjure a shaky, Tony Stark-worthy grin and croak, “What’s next, fellas? The Iron Maiden?” in Charlie’s general direction.

“No,” snaps Renee, and yanks the kid before Lang’s eyes. “She’s next.”

It’s mesmerizing how quickly Lang’s grin melts; he goes pale, glancing from Cassie’s terrified face to Charlie’s victorious one. “No,” he manages, “no, no, no, no…”

“Take her,” Charlie says, nodding to Renee and Mason. Lang’s still gasping “no,” over and over again, like a broken record, as though the fact that his seven-year-old daughter is actually in front of him has just struck him. Just as Cassie leaps for her dad, Mason grabs her by the back of her hoodie, pulling her back before she can touch him. “I’ll stay with Lang.”

Scott Lang’s shaking his head now, frantic, his arms fighting maniacally against his bonds. “No, _no!_ Please, no, she’s just a _kid_, leave her alone, please—_please_, you can’t, please, you wouldn’t—”

Charlie hits him across the face so hard that his hand stings after the blow; a buzzing feeling goes through him, something like electric triumph, upon seeing Lang like this. Scott Lang is broken now, begging for mercy, after hours of torture, and all it took was one scared scream from the kid.

“—p-please, I’m _begging_ you, I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt her—”

“Shut _up!_” Charlie picks up Mason’s hammer as a warning. “One more word out of you, and this is going straight through your skull, understand?” Now, he understands why Mason is so frustrated. Lang talks too much.

Lang trembles and tries not to make another sound. An odd, sickly silence follows, in which Lang shifts in his chair. Soaked in blood and urine, his pants squelch against the wood as he cranes his neck to try to see Cassie. His breathing transforms from pained groans to fearful, shallow panting, his fingers white-knuckled against the arms of the chair.

Then it comes: a little girl’s blood-curdling scream, wet and painful and _horrible_, so Lang goes berserk, thrashing in his chair like a madman, words spilling from his mouth: “No, _no_—I’ll do whatever you want me to, _please_, oh, God, please, leave her be—Cassie! _Cassie!_ Oh, fucking God, fuck, please, no, leave her, take me instead, I’ll do it, I'll do anything, _anything_, just leave her alone—Cassie, Cassie, _Cassie!_”

Charlie watches it continue for ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, until finally, the screaming dies down and Lang, reduced to a sobbing mess, cries, “I’ll do it. I p-promise you, I’ll d-do it!”

Charlie’s shoulders relax a little. “Good,” he says calmly. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 7:42 PM**

“On the way back,” May Parker announces, “you’re driving, you little liar!” She’s driving with one hand on the wheel, the other dabbing on lipstick. At a sudden bump in the road, the tube misses her mouth, smearing pink on her chin, and she swears loudly.

“I didn’t lie!” Peter whines back, stretching his legs out. “I _am_ tired!”

May wipes at her chin with the back of her hand, trying to make the pink go away. “You haven’t gone on patrol today, Peter!” Realizing she missed their turn, she makes a screeching U-turn before facing her nephew again. “How are you tired?”

Okay, so maybe he’s squeezing the truth a little. Sure, he only hung out at Tony’s after school instead of patrolling like he said, but he _hates_ driving. It sets his teeth on edge. When he drives a car, _everything_ is a possible danger, and whenever he’s nervous like that, his Spidey Sense (or, as May likes to call it, his Peter tingle) goes insane. “School,” he claims, picking at his cuticles. “I had a calc test today; it sucked the life right out of my body!”

May rolls her eyes as she pulls up to a stoplight. “Sure it did, kiddo. But you’re still driving on the way back. I’m gonna have some wine tonight, and no scaredy-cat teenage boy’s gonna tell me that I have to drive him home. You’re the designated driver tonight, Petey.”

He slaps her arm. “May! Don’t call me that.”

“What? You let Tony call you that—hey! Don’t change the music! That was a good song!”

“It was Bruce Springsteen!”

“Exactly!”

Peter groans in protest. “No, please, don’t make me go back! I can’t survive another Springsteen song!”

May gives him a devilish grin and changes the radio station back to its original song.

“No! You skipped Say Something!”

“My car, my rules, Peter—what’d I say? Don’t touch the radio—”

“But it’s Justin Timberlake’s _best_ song!”

“I don’t care! Driver picks the music—”

Fire races up Peter’s neck, flooding his system: _danger_. He jerks his head to the left, _blinding white headlights_— “May, _look out!_”

He throws his arm out to protect her, because there’s _no fucking way_ she can react fast enough to move the car out of the way, and then everything is—

—chaos and spinning and jolting, pain splitting up his left arm, jerking around, his skull smashing against cold glass, screeching and whining, until finally—

—tentative stillness, the car’s unbalanced rocking, and warmth trickling down (up?) his arm; his head whirs, dotted with pain, and it takes him a moment to realize that the unnatural heaviness of his head and the pull on his joints means he is _upside down_. The car is flipped _upside down_.

Peter opens his eyes and fumbles for his seatbelt, his heart pattering in his chest. He turns—Aunt May. She hangs in her seatbelt like a broken arm in a sling: there is red _everywhere_. He chokes on his shock (one, two, three, get up, get _out_, you have to _do_ something) and then calls her name: “May? May! _May!_”

A click on his right side; the door swings open, and he nearly sobs in relief. “Help her,” he gasps. “Get her, she’s bleeding, help, ple—”

Someone yanks him roughly from the car, and as he hits the ground he realizes: _something is wrong_. His Spidey-senses are a whirlwind of panic, and he glances up at the figure above him to realize that this is _not_ a rescue attempt. Just as the man’s arm swings down, something thin clenched in his fist, he recognizes—this is an _attack_, and rolls _hard_ to the right, away from the car. But he’s not fast enough—his head still rings from the impact and his left arm hangs limply at his side, so Peter’s not at his prime right now. So the object plunges into his arm instead of his chest, which he automatically thinks is a win...until he knocks it away and realizes it wasn’t a knife. It was a _syringe_. What the fuck? His body feels a little heavy, like he’s covered in wet cloth, but he still manages to shake off the strange feeling and keep going.

_Get up, Spiderman!_ he thinks, and then he’s on his feet again, dodging and punching and twisting and hitting until finally there’s four masked figures on the ground, unconscious or wishing they were. He doesn’t have time to quip or crack a smile; he barely has time to check himself for injuries as he rushes to Aunt May’s side of the car, flinging the door open. She’s still unconscious, upside down, her hair lolling back and forth with the rocking of the car. As he reaches for her, checking her pulse, his mind spins as the strangeness in his limbs worsens; his fingers press against May’s neck, and the faint flutter of a heartbeat he feels there sends hope scattering through his chest. Who are these people? They’re dressed like fucking _villains_: matching black, armored suits and facemasks. Matching weapons, even—massive guns and black-handled knives that they tried to use on Peter. Not including the syringe, and God knows why—

Something pricks in his back, and Peter whirls back around to see another masked man holding an empty syringe. Numbness creeps up his feet, oddly cold, and Peter trips over himself as he swings his fists at the man; his body feels wrong, _heavy_, yet still he keeps fighting. This isn’t just a mugging in an alley—this is Aunt May’s life in his hands. Minute pain tickles his arm, and then ice creeps over his arms, spreading over his skin. Where the hell did that come from? There must be another one—he counted only five of them. _Fuck_. He knows the feeling by now—sickly sweet, numbing sensations ripple through his muscles. Peter turns around—his head is cotton candy, yanked apart piece by piece, and he tries to punch his new attacker, but he keeps _missing_. How? _Spiderman doesn’t miss_, he thinks vaguely, as the icy cold reaches into his brain and squeezes. _Spiderman doesn’t_…

He’s on the ground now, his face pressed against grass, and his limbs flop uselessly at his sides. “Why the fuck did it take so many doses?” snaps an angry voice, just as the paralysis climbs up Peter’s jaw.

“I… I don’t know,” admits the second. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

“We gotta take care of _her_ first, Dave.” Peter’s breath halts, slanting in his throat. _Her_ could only mean one person: May. “We can’t afford to get caught.”

A beat. “Take care...of her? I’m no killer, you ass. I may be helping you, but I’m not killing her. She didn’t do anything.”

An irritated groan. “She wasn’t supposed to be here. It was just supposed to be the Spider guy—”

“Just leave her, Jack. She’s gonna die before anyone finds her, anyway. Just look at her.”

A horrible silence, as Peter awaits their decision. To them, it’s a matter of getting caught, but to Peter, they’re threatening his entire _world_. May is all he has left—frantic desperation rips up his spine, and he uses all the will he has left to try to move again, but nothing happens. _Come on, Spiderman! Come on!_ Peter couldn’t save Uncle Ben, but he has to save May, he _has_ to— “Fuck, fuck, fucking _fine_, let’s go. Grab him.”

There’s a moment of strained relief followed by shuffling as Peter tries to move his arms, jerking his heavy arms in the voices’ direction. “Fuck! He’s still awake!”

A sharp pain in his neck, a bloody fist, and then blissful darkness.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 8:02 PM**

Maggie’s eyes are sticky, like she’s been asleep for a dozen years. Cold, stiff sheets. Aching pain. A voice calling her name.

She squints up at a green-clothed man in front of her; he’s the one saying her name. “Blink if you can hear me, Mrs. Paxton.”

She blinks, confused. “What… What happened?”

He frowns. “You sustained several severe blows to the head. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I…” She takes a moment. She remembers going out to breakfast with Jim in the morning, picking up Cassie from kindergarten—

_Cassie_. She scrabbles at the blankets; her right arm is useless, bound in thick bandages, so she pushes herself up with her other hand. “Cassie!” It all rushes back to her: Jim unconscious on the floor, the attack, the gunshot, the wild realization that they wanted _Cassie_— “Oh, God—where is she?”

The nurse gulps and clasps his hands together tightly. “I’m not authorized to—”

She’s never felt terror like this before—it’s horrible and electrifying, whipping up a frenzy of needles inside of her chest. She swings her good arm forward and grabs him by the collar; he winces. “Tell where my daughter is, asshole!” Pain ripples over her torso.

He looks like an ant beneath a microscope, squirming beneath the intense heat of her eyes. “They took her, ma’am,” he confesses, and her grip on his scrubs loosens. “The police went after them, but it’d been too long. They were already gone by the time the neighbors called 911.”

_They took her. They took her. They took her. _Maggie’s brain won’t function. “But how—” She chokes on her words. “No, no, no…” She grabs at her hair, and pained dread pangs in her neck, leaking down into her heart. “No, God, no…” Nightmarish thoughts peel at her head and spear behind her eyes, and anguished nausea swirls in her stomach. She wraps her arms around her belly, clawing at the bandages there.

“Mrs. Paxton, the police are doing everything they can. They’ve already sent out an Amber Alert, and they’ve alerted all the nearby hospitals to any children matching your daughter’s description.” He looks uncomfortable, even guilty, and he backs away from her hospital bed. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Paxton. So, so sorry.”

Maggie can barely hear him leave; her daughter, her baby, her Cassie… Horror wracks her mind, darkness pries at her mind—_her seven-year-old, her baby girl, scared and hurt and crying for her_—and she presses a shaking hand to her distressed mouth, trying to keep all her horrified thoughts pinned inside of her.

There’s nothing worse than this, the absence of Cassie at her side, knowing that gruesome, unspeakable things could be happening to her at any moment; Maggie cries into her hands, sobbing. Cassie…

The doctor comes about an hour later to trade places with the nurse; she’s antsy, constantly shifting from foot to foot as she speaks, like the elephant in the room of Cassie’s kidnapping can just be ignored. After several choked-out apologies, she explains most of the medical implications of the attack in an apologetic stammer, telling her has several broken ribs, a gunshot wound to the forearm—“Just a graze, ma’am, you got lucky,” she says—and a minor concussion. “We stitched up that cut in your forehead,” the doctor says carefully. “But you have take it easy for now.” Maggie wraps her arms around herself. “We’ll keep you overnight for observation, but after that we’ll give you medicine to take home…”

Everything after that is blurry, shadowed by the knowledge that Cassie has been kidnapped. She visits Jim’s hospital room; he wakes up a couple hours after her, but he doesn’t remember anything before the night prior. “What’s wrong?” Jim asks. He’s still got that hopeful look in his eyes. “Why do you look so…”

Maggie knows the word he is trying not to say. _Devastated_. Like her entire world has been ripped away from her fingertips. “She’s gone,” she croaks. “They took Cassie.”

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 8:29 PM**

The doorbell rings for a second time, and finally Julia, sprawled across the couch next to Cristian, lets out annoyed groan.

“Not it,” her husband chirps.

“Honey, you can’t do ‘not it’ with two people! It doesn’t work!”

He shrugs and snuggles deeper into the couch. “Nose goes,” he says, tapping his nose.

“Same rules, Cristian!”

He only laughs, so finally Julia relents. “Lazy ass,” she complains, swatting his thigh as she gets up. “You’re getting up next time.”

She heads to the door; the occasional ringing has now evolved into frantic banging. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” she calls out, mildly irritated. It’s probably one of their neighbors asking about a lost pet. That kid next door can never keep track of his toy poodle. She peers through the peephole first.

Instead of a mailman or a neighbor, she finds a tall, black teen, probably eighteen or nineteen. She knows him well—as a police officer, she has frequent run-ins with this one: Ty. He isn’t dangerous, just a drug addict like her brother. He looks odd—not sober, just odd—like he’s about to vomit all over her front porch. She cracks the door open. “If you’re gonna puke,” she warns him, “do it in the grass.”

He shakes his head. “No—I gotta—I’m not sick—I gotta tell you somethin’, miss, somethin’ important—real important, miss—” He rubs his already messy dreads into a chaotic pile. “Can I—can I come in?”

Briefly, Julia thinks of her children. Ty isn’t dangerous, she reminds herself, and she’ll be with him the whole time. After they instruct the kids to stay in the basement while they talk, they sit Ty down at the kitchen table—Cristian and Julia on one side, Ty on the other. He’s nervous, but assures then repeatedly that he’s unarmed. “I don’t wanna hurt nobody,” he says, “promise, miss.”

She wants to say something to him, something like “I know” or “It’s okay” to calm his anxious nerves, but she can’t do it. He is too young, too unstable, too terrified, and it puts her on edge, like someone’s father will come sprawling in at any moment drenched in drunken rage.

“They’re gone,” he says finally, after a century of painful silence. “Charlie, RJ, everybody.”

Julia and Cristian share a concerned glance. “What?”

He explains what happened in shaky sentences; Charlie, Julia’s brother, had been Ty’s dealer for the past few months. “None of the hard shit,” he promises her. Charlie and Ty met once or twice a week, and Ty often hung around Charlie’s crew—a group of drug addicts who were so far gone that Ty’d never once met them lucid, let alone sober. They were always on something, whether it was coke, dope, speed, or dust. “An’ I know they didn’ always do good, but they was good, promise. They kept talkin’ about how they was gonna change the world, make it a better place…” He trails off. He tells Julia that a couple of weeks ago, Charlie had missed their weekly meetup without any warning. Originally, he dismissed it as Charlie being too high to deal that day, but when he tried to get into contact with some of Charlie’s guys to see if they would deal to him, they were gone, too. He checked with everyone in Charlie’s tight circle of drug addicts; they’d all vanished. “Last time I saw them, their place was some abandoned, creepy-ass dungeon or some shit, fuckin’ snakes on the walls…” But when he tried to find them, he explains, the place was empty. They were gone.

Finally, Ty sighs. “I didn’ know where to go, miss. I can’t trust none of those cops but you. Anybody else woulda put me in jail, and I can’t go back there. I’m just scared ‘cause these are my people, you know? And they ain’t done nothing wrong, but I think somethin’ happened to ‘em.” He stares emptily at Julia. “Somethin’ bad.”

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 9:05 PM**

Cassie is cold. So, so cold. She’s never been hurt like this before. Not when she tripped in soccer and sprained her ankle, not when Jim accidentally hit her in the face with a softball, and not even when her grandma died a year ago. At least then, she had Daddy or Mommy or Jim with her.

Now, it’s just Cassie. Cassie, the toilet, and the weird scratches in the walls. It’s a tiny room with gray walls, gray floor, and a gray ceiling. There’s a toilet and a sink in the corner, but nothing else. No bed, no chair, no table. The door is gray, too, reinforced with metal bolts, and only a slit, almost a rectangular hole, in the center of the door signifies that there’s any outside at all. She’s all alone, in this tiny room, and there’s blood all over her arm and she’s scared. She doesn’t want to remember that the Red-Hair Lady grabbed Mommy and smashed her head against the wall. She doesn’t want to remember that Red-Hair Lady took her knife and cut her arms open. She doesn’t want to remember any of this.

But when it’s just Cassie, all alone, all she has is her thoughts, and she can’t help but remember how much it hurt.

She whimpers and draws her knees to her chest, pulling at the sticky, bloodstained sleeves of her hoodie. She doesn’t like this. She wants Mommy and Daddy and Jim… She wants Jim to hug her and cook her some ramen. She wants Mommy to rock her and read her a bedtime story. She wants Daddy to sing her favorite song…

_Daddy_. She remembers seeing his face before Red-Hair Lady took her away, before the hurt— She squeezes her eyes shut. She remembers that he was tied to a chair, that he was scared and he looked like he was hurting a lot. And when he saw Cassie, it was like his whole world had fallen apart. She’s never seen him like that before, and now she’s more scared than ever before. She starts to cry, sobbing into her knees; she wants Daddy, she wants Daddy, she wants _Daddy!_

Red-Hair Lady and Big-Man locked her in here. When she cried and begged for them to let her go, Red-Hair Lady grabbed her by the throat and threatened to cut her tongue out unless she shut up. Cassie reaches into her mouth and touches her tongue, just to reassure herself that it’s still there. She can still remember Red-Hair Lady and the terrifying fury of her words.

She knows Daddy will come for her. He _has_ to. He always promised that he’d keep her safe, no matter what happened. She believes in him. Maybe he can turn into Ant-Man and slip free! Then he can come save her. She nods to herself. Yes, Daddy will come save her. He is brave and strong, and whenever she’s in trouble, he is there—

A loud _beep_ and then the locked door before her clicks open. Cassie perks up, her sob caught in her throat. “Daddy?”

A snort of laughter is her reply. “Don’t you wish, cutie.”

Cassie shakes in her fear. It’s the Red-Hair Lady and Big-Man, and they look mad. “No, n-n-no! I d-do-don’t wanna go, p-please!” She is crying again, so hard that she can’t control it. “I wanna go home!”

Red-Hair Lady leans down to meet her face-to-face. “You’re not going home for a long time, cutie. So get used to it.”

Cassie cries harder—“I wanna go ho-home!”—and Red-Hair Lady slaps her.

She’s never been slapped before, and it’s _startling_, a violation of everything she’s ever known. She can still feel Red-Hair Lady’s hand on her cheek, a ghost of the blow. “Shut up,” snaps the woman. “Don’t be a fucking baby.” As Big-Man grabs her by the waist and slings her under his arm, kicking and wailing, Red-Hair Lady storms out of the room. “Charlie!” she shouts. “Lang’s taking too fucking long!”

Cassie can hear broken protests from the far end of the hallway. Once, she thinks she can hear her name among the desperate words.

The tall, bearded man is now talking feverishly to Red-Hair Lady. “He says he’s going as fast as he can, Renee. Mason, put the kid down.”

Big-Man shifts nervously, glancing at Red-Hair Lady. “As fast as he can?” Red-Hair Lady scowls. “Bullshit! At this rate, it’ll be days before he’s done. We need this, and we need it now. Lang just needs a little motivation, that’s all. Something to get those fucking fingers moving.”

The other man hesitates. “Fine,” he says. “As long as Lang does his job.”

Renee smirks. “I’ll make sure he does.”

Cassie’s not stupid; she knows that they’re talking about Daddy. “I want Daddy!” she wails. She knows he’s here, somewhere, and the combination of the cuts on her arms, the swelling in her face, and the Red-Hair Lady’s presence has made her frantic and desperate. “Please, please, I’ll be—”

When Red-Hair Lady whirls around this time, Cassie stops abruptly, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to squirm away from the oncoming blow. But she’s still not prepared enough. Red-Hair Lady’s palm hits her in the face, and pain sparks behind her eyes. “What’d I tell you?” She yanks Cassie from Big-Man’s arms, sending her sprawling on the ground. “Hey! Look at me!”

Cassie doesn’t want to look at her, she doesn’t want to look, she doesn’t want to—

Another slap, this time on the other side of her face. “_Look_ at me!”

Cassie pries her terrified eyes open, every bone in her body vibrating in alarm.

“You don’t talk unless I say so, got it?” Her red hair swishes as she talks. “Got it?” Her voice is dangerous now, like quicksand, and Cassie nods furiously. “Good.”

She drags Cassie to the bad room, the bad room—not the bad room, no, no—and straps her to the table—the bad table, the bad table, not the bad table, she doesn’t want to hurt again—

There’s fingers at her arm, yanking up her sleeve, wiping the crease of her inner arm with something cold. Cassie is cold, so cold, and she shuts her eyes, crying silently and hiccuping. “Don’t move,” instructs Red-Hair Lady, and then there’s a prick in her arm.

“Ow!” Suddenly, there’s what feels like fire spreading over her skin, lighting her up and tearing her apart.

Cassie can hear something, something high-pitched and horrible and bad—she wants the bad to stop, it hurts so much, but it’s all she can feel and it’s swallowing her up—

Her throat is raw—she’s screaming, screaming, screaming for anyone, anything to help her.

But no one comes.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 10:11 PM**

“Holy shit, Chlo, pull over!”

Chloe Tanner jerks his head to the right, where her boyfriend, John, is pointing. “What?” Then she sees it: a car upside down, a mess of crumpled metal and red-spattered earth. “Oh, shit!” She yanks her car to the right, parking abruptly a few hundred feet away from the crash. There’s no police cars near it, or any people standing beside the car. What the hell happened here? Someone has to do something. What if there’s someone in there? John and Chloe rush out of the car. Shattered glass crunches beneath Chloe’s sneakers as she and John approach the vehicle. “Hello?” John announces, and Chloe runs to the front door.

There’s a dark-haired woman inside, blood spreading across the front of her lavender blouse, hung upside down by her seatbelt. Her face is startlingly flushed, probably from all the blood settling in her head, and her head dangles limply as Chloe opens the car door. “Shit, _shit!_ John, call 911!”

John slams his fingers into his phone, almost frantic. “Um—he-hello? There’s a car crash here—a lady’s i-in the front…” He steps over the scattered glass to stare at the woman.

As he talks to the 911 operator, Chloe presses her fingers to the woman’s neck. A faint, fluttering pulse meets her fingers, but that’s all she needs. “She’s still alive!” she shouts. “What do we do?”

John puts the phone on speaker and describes the physical state of the woman, stuttering out that she is upside down and he doesn’t know if they should move her.  
“Don’t move her,” instructs the operator. “Find the source of the bleeding, if you can, and put pressure on it until we can get to you. It should only be a few minutes. Keep checking her breathing and her heart rate, okay? If it stops, I’ll need you to perform CPR on her. Do you know how?”

Already pressing her scarf to the woman’s slashed thigh, Chloe stammers, “Ye-yeah, I know how.”

Those few minutes seem like hours as Chloe keeps pressure on the gashes and John checks her heartbeat. Finally, the ambulance arrives and four paramedics in matching uniform pour out, walking firmly towards them with a stretcher and medical supplies. “We’ll take it from here,” says one, just as they reach the woman.

Chloe reaches for John’s hand and grips it tightly, backing away from her. They ride with her to the hospital, where the police interrogate them about what happened, but neither of them know enough to further the investigation. “We didn’t see anything,” Chloe assures the first officer, a woman with a blonde ponytail named Officer Bone. “Just found her, that’s all. I think it’d already been here a while by the time we got here.”

Officer Bone nods, scribbling something down. “Well, we’re really grateful you found her. If you hadn’t, she could just as easily be dead.”

Chloe gulps. If she hadn’t pulled over the car… If they hadn’t done anything… If John had been asleep… This horrible realization washes over her: this woman could have died. “Is she… Is she gonna be okay?”

Bone glances wearily behind her. “Her head looked pretty banged up, so I can’t tell you for sure…” She removes her hat. “But I have your contact information. I’ll keep you updated on her condition.” She sighs. “Are you sure you couldn’t find anything about her identity?”

Both John and Chloe answer with a simple “no.” The paramedics gave all the woman’s belongings to the police, and they didn’t find a wallet or a phone on her; there were no frantic police calls on missing middle-aged women, either.

Bone clears her throat. “Well, until we find something, she’s a Jane Doe until she wakes up or someone comes for her.”

As Officer Bone leaves to talk to the other policemen, Chloe slumps into one of the waiting room chairs. She hopes that this woman, whoever she is, will be okay.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 11:21 PM**

They spent the past few hours chatting with semi-drunk socialites and businessmen; Tony dazzled them with half-hearted tales of Iron Man’s adventures while Pepper approached the hosts with financial propositions.

Pepper looks sleek tonight, her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into an elegant bun, and her cocktail dress is a rich, deep purple that matches the color of Tony’s suit. Tony, to say the least, matches his elegant partner, a silk tie loose around his neck. Pepper has always been the more formal one, rarely able to tell a story about herself to someone she didn’t know well. From where he currently stands, Tony can hear her laugh as she chats about Tony and his bad habit of showing up late to everything. “I’ve started marking everything in his calendar an hour before they actually start, just so he’ll be on time!”

Tony grazes his hand along her waist, alerting her to his presence just as he appears beside her. He can hear the exhaustion in her voice. “Sorry, ladies,” he says, nodding to the other three women, “but I’ll just be borrowing Ms. Potts for a moment.”

As soon as they are out of hearing range of the other guests, Pepper sighs. “Thank God,” she says. “I don’t think I could’ve done that for much longer.” She kisses his cheek.

“What, are they boring you?”

She wrinkles her nose. “No, I’m just tired of socializing, at least for today.” That, at the very least, Tony can understand. Pepper had spent almost the entire day in meetings and making calls to various companies. Her eyes light up with something mischievous. “Come on, let’s get out of here!”

Tony stares at her in mock shock, taking on the richest accent he can muster. “Leave the gala? Oh, the scandal, my dear!”

Pepper stifles a giggle. “God, Tony, your British accent is the _worst_.”

He pouts as she hooks her arm around his and leads them towards the exit. “I thought it was awesome!”

“Awesomely _terrible_,” she reminds him. “Any British person within a ten-mile radius would be offended, I’m sure. And stop saying 'awesome.' You've been spending way too much time with Peter.”

Tony grins. “Pepper, my love, you _wound_ me.”

She rolls her eyes, opening the door for him. “Come on, Shakespeare, let’s go find some pizza.”

This time, it’s Tony’s turn to break into a smile. “Pizza!”

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 11:33 PM**

When Ty finally leaves, Julia goes upstairs with Cristian. The kids are already fast asleep, but they kiss each of them good night before heading back to their room. After Julia changes into some pajamas and gets into bed, Cristian climbs in beside her. “_Piensas que nos dijo la verdad?_” he asked softly. _Do you think he told us the truth?_

Julia nods. She’s lying on her side, facing him. “Ty may be an addict,” she replies, “but he’s not a bad kid. He wouldn’t lie about something like this, and, I mean, just look at him. He could barely talk, he was so…” She doesn’t know how to explain it, but she knows that look in his eyes well. Terrified. Distressed. Helpless. “...scared. You can’t fake that.”

Cristian pulls her closer to him, and he presses his face into her hair. “What are you gonna do, Julia?”

“It’s gonna be hard,” she confesses, “but I’ve gotta report it. I’ll leave him out of it—I don’t want him going back to prison—but there’s no way I can’t report this.” The people Ty cares for so much are drug addicts and ex-cons; the New York Police Department cares little for them. She’ll have to use her strong reputation as a high-ranking officer to advocate for Ty and his missing friends. And her missing brother. Charlie, she thinks immediately, and now she feels desperation clench around her heart. “I have to—I _have_ to find my brother.” She tries not to think of all the horrible things that could have happened to him, but her mind barrels forward. “He’s my baby brother, I can’t—” Her voice cracks.

Cristian slides his arm around her waist and shushes her. “I know, I know. You’ll find him, I know you will.”

Julia prays to God that she will, too.

* * *

**APRIL 6 — 11:46 PM**

Happy drives them to Pepper’s favorite pizza place, one that sells Chicago-style deep dish. It’s hard to forget that Pepper was a Chicagoan (honestly, she still is), for Chicago always seems to seep into her daily life, whether it be her odd taste in pizza, her obsession with the Chicago Cubs, or her uncanny ability to survive any cold weather without blinking.

And because Pepper craves deep dish pizza on a weekly basis, they’ve become intimately familiar with one pizza place in particular, one called Lou Malnati’s, but they are not familiar with the teenage girl at the register, who gapes unashamedly at them as they enter the building.

“Hey, order for pickup?” announces Pepper, smiling expectantly, “For Potts?”

The girl doesn’t move, simply staring, starstruck, at them. “Uh…”

Tony sighs. He doesn’t need another fangirl right now, not at eleven at night when all he wants is a dumb pizza. “Look, kid, can we just get the pizza?”

The employee next to her, one who has seen them countless times before and has grown used to their presence, announces, “Of course, Mr. Stark, right away, sir!” The employee slips into the back as the other girl stands with her mouth open.

But as he watches the girl’s face break into a blushing smile, he realizes she isn’t even looking at him. She's looking at _Pepper_. “M-Ms. Potts,” she stammers, her voice so high it’s almost a squeal, “I-I’m a huge fan of yours; I’ve loved you since I was little when I read that article about how you…” The girl is full-on rambling, spilling every fact she knows about Pepper, and Tony watches his fiancée’s smile grow wider with every word. Iron Man fans are like pebbles, commonplace, but Pepper Potts fans are something else entirely. “...and as the only female CEO in—and, I mean, of the most powerful company in New York? You’re amazing! An inspiration! I can’t believe you’re standing here, wow—” The girl adjusts her hijab anxiously, tugging at the edges. Her nametag reads AYOMI. “It's such a pleasure to—um—to see you—um, um—could I—do you think I could—um, maybe—”

Pepper, being the wonderfully empathetic woman that she is, reaches across the counter and places a calming hand on Ayomi’s starstruck shoulder. “A picture? Of course!”

Tony thinks the girl is going to faint, right then and there. Instead, however, Ayomi’s eyes brighten and she nearly trips over herself getting to the other side of the counter, just as the other employee returns with their pizza. “Thank you, thank you!” she gasps.

Tony almost bursts out laughing at the expression on Pepper’s face. Pepper Potts can stare down a roomful of angry reporters, counter death threats, and command all of Stark Industries, but in the end, she is just as nervous as the fan herself. The negative attention she receives as CEO of Stark Industries is miles away from this glowing praise she is receiving from the young woman standing in front of her.

Ayomi clears her throat. “Um, Mr. Stark, do you think you could…” She holds her phone out to him, already in the camera app.

Tony is, in a word, bewildered. He hasn’t been asked to take someone else’s picture since...well, ever. But nonetheless, he takes the phone and snaps a dozen photos of Pepper and Ayomi. He knows Pepper is beyond ecstatic to have this kind of attention, and that over-the-moon feeling is washing over him, now, too.

God, he loves this woman.

After finally getting the pizza and giving about four goodbye hugs to Ayomi, they head back to Stark Tower. By that time, they are starving, so they devour the pizza in the car.

“Watch the seats, watch the seats!” complains Happy. “I just got those cleaned.”

Pepper and Tony share a knowing look with each other, glancing down guiltily at the pizza sauce smeared on the seat between them. “Oh, yeah, definitely!” Pepper declares, as Tony tries to clean up the mess they’d made. “Seats are fine, Happy; you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Happy gives a Scroogelike grunt, muttering under his breath. “Yeah, yeah.”

By the time they are back inside, kicking their shoes off, it’s midnight, and they slump in the bed together, Pepper literally groaning with delight. “I wanna go to sleep,” she mumbles into the pillow, “and never wake up again.”

Tony laughs. “Come here, baby, I’ll take your hair down. You don’t want to go to sleep like that.”

He gets a muffled moan in response.

Tony scoots up the bed on his knees. “Come on, Sleepy, turn over.” She flops onto her back, groaning in protest. He lifts her head into his lap so he can remove the bobby pins, one by one. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles. “Something without people.”

“What, a nature documentary?” He plucks another pin out and tosses it on the nightstand.

Her eyes are still closed. “No… A cartoon. Something with little animals…”

Tony smirks. “A Disney movie? I’ve got just the thing.”

Before long, Finding Nemo is playing on the screen, and they’ve stripped out of their restricting gala outfits and into T-shirts, curled beneath the covers.

The best thing about their relationship is that it’s entirely beyond the physical, nothing like Tony’s previous relationships. Before Pepper, his dating pool had been entirely based on physical beauty and social status, even attainability, but not mutual compatibility. Obviously he’s attracted to Pepper, but it goes so far beyond that. With Pepper, he’s more himself then he’s ever been. He can watch dumb Disney movies with her, he can eat pizza at midnight with her, he can cry in front of her… He doesn’t need to impress her, and she doesn’t need to impress him. They know each other too well.

“He’s kinda like you,” Pepper mutters, yawning.

Tony snaps back to the present. “What? Who?”

Pepper looks so beautiful now, the ends of her mouth twitching into an amused smile. “The dad fish… What’s his name again? Merlin? Marlin?” She yawns again. “He loves his damn kid so much…”

Tony combs his fingers through her hair. “Pep, we don’t have a kid. That doesn’t—”

“Peter,” she interrupts, “is Nemo. Does something dumb, the world implodes on him, and eventually you’re there to save him.”

“Well, I don’t think—”

“Last month,” she continues, her eyes still closed, “you took him to see Hamilton with us.”

Tony snorts. “He’d been listening to the soundtrack nonstop! What was I supposed to do?”

“In March,” she says, ignoring him, “when he got shot in that robbery, you made him stay in the Medbay for the whole day, and you didn’t let him patrol for a week, even though it’d fully healed by the second day.”

“His body was still recovering!” Tony protests. “And—”

“Once a month, you take him to your favorite sandwich place.” She is sitting up now, blinking groggily at him.

“What’s so bad about that?”

Pepper rubs her eyes. “You only ever take _me_ there, dumbass. Or Rhodey. You’ve never even mentioned it to Happy or anyone else.”

Tony’s face flushes pink. “Well, I mean, it’s personal, knowing that, and, uh—”

And still Pepper rattles on. “You let him pick the music in the car, you brought his lunch to school when he forgot it, you left an important meeting so you could go to his decathlon meet, you went out for ice cream with him when he had a fight with his friend, you always ask how he is, you’re always checking with his AI to make sure he’s okay, you—”

“Okay, okay!” Tony huffs. “You’re right, fine. It’s just like… If I had a kid, I’d want him to be like Pete, you know?” He sinks his face with the nearest pillow, groaning.

Pepper laughs beside him; _what a privilege_, he thinks suddenly, _it is to hear Pepper Potts laugh_. “Baby, Peter’s already your kid. You’re just too thick headed to see it. He’s here at least twice a week, Tony.”

Tony mumbles a fragmented response into the pillow. Pepper snakes an arm around his side, “C’mere,” she says, pulling him closer. “I’m cold.”

Tony welcomes her presence at his side; she snuggles into him, pressing her cold toes against his bare calf— “God, _fuck_, Pepper, your feet are like ice! Keep those things to yourself, _Elsa!_”

Drowsy, she giggles a little, clasping onto him tighter. He follows her freckled arm around his torso to hold her hand, and he turns onto his side so that her chest is pressed against his back. This is how they usually cuddle: Tony, the little spoon, and Pepper, the big spoon.

Pepper falls asleep first, snoring lightly against his chest. Their legs are intertwined, and Tony’s sure he’ll wake up with his feet asleep if he stays like this, so he gently shifts, untangling their limbs. In the background, Finding Nemo plays, and he mutes it with a quiet order to FRIDAY. As he watches, Marlin tries to convince the leader of a school of moonfish to tell him how to get to his son.

_If I lost Peter_, Tony thinks, _I’d be a lot better at finding him than this dumb fish_. Satisfied, he turns the television off and burrows beneath the covers, watching Pepper’s chest rise and fall in a deep sleep. What did he do to deserve a woman as amazing as her? He smiles to himself, closing his eyes. What did he do to deserve a kid as great as Peter?

Before long, he is snoring, too, slipping into the peaceful realm of sleep with his fiancée at his side.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 2:09 AM**

Scott’s wrists spike with pain, and he pauses to rub them, the action made awkward by the handcuffs locked around them. He’s not in the Chair anymore—he’s in a hard chair before a metal table, set with a laptop and other computer supplies. He’s got more freedom now, at least; his arms and legs are cuffed, but they aren’t attached to the chair so that he has enough freedom to work. It’s odd to him that the crushing pain of his mutilated legs has faded with the mission before him, fueled by his mind, the computer, and his throbbing hands. Well, they gave him a little painkiller a few hours ago, too, solely because he was too delirious with pain to work, so that helps. And they added some adrenaline to the mix, so Scott is wide awake. Charlie or American Psycho or whoever was right: the only thing Scott needs is his head and his hands.

Three times since he first arrived here, he has heard his little girl scream. It’s not anything like the false screeches in horror movies or Cassie’s usual happy squeals. It’s the sound of pain, horrific agony coursing through the air, and it’s so violent and terrible and _sickening_ that when Scott hears it he can barely breathe.

The worst part about it is that he can’t see her, but he knows that’s her voice. He knows better than almost anyone on the planet what Cassie sounds like, even if it’s just a whimper or a sob. That’s _his_ daughter. He can’t touch her, can’t hold her, can’t tell her a joke, can’t sing her a lullaby… It’s agonizing. Forget his legs—it’s like an entire chunk of his heart has been torn from his chest.

Scott knows there’s only one way to get Cassie out of here: doing what he’s told. Even if it means breaking dozens of laws and putting others in danger, he’ll do anything if it means that they’ll stop hurting Cassie. He never used to understand the blind, ultra-sacrificial love that parents held for their children when he was younger, but after he learned that Maggie was pregnant, he knew. He knew that he would do anything to protect his child.

Just knowing that Cassie is in pain now is putting his heart through a meat grinder; he types faster, clicking and hacking and typing until his fingers are a blur at the keyboard.

At the sound of the door at the end of the hallway, Scott jumps; he can’t help it. Last time that door opened, that sick fuck, Renee, came through with his little girl. This time, he listens hard, typing faster than ever. If he shows any sign of slacking, they’ll make Cassie scream again. And he’ll do anything in the world to not hear that sound ever again.

It’s not Renee, Charlie, or Mason—his three main captors are busy getting high on the other side of the place—warehouse? Base? Building? Lair? He realizes quite suddenly that he has no _idea_ where he is. He could be in a cave, for all he knows. There’s no windows, not that he can see, and the cold air seeping through the vents does nothing but tell him that they’ve got air conditioning.

There’s an almost eerie silence following the opening of the door, and then a _thump_, the all-too-familiar sound of a body hitting the ground, and fear prickles down Scott’s back. What if they caught another one of his loved ones: Maggie, Hope, Hank, or even Jim? The fear that overcomes him in that moment drains him of his energy. He’s barely clinging on to his composure as it is, but this… Then, vaguely, he remembers the first thing he was asked to do: hack into Tony Stark’s computer system and locate what Stark designated as “SKM7.” Scott discovered several hours ago that SKM7 was a moving target, which he found to be strange, but he figured it was a vehicle or Stark-created piece of technology. There’d been nothing in the files he’d hacked about SKM7 stating that it could be a person.

As the door to the room swings open and two of Charlie’s black-clothed guys drag a limp form between them, Scott understands with violent precision: SKM7 is a person. By the look of him, a _young_ person. “No, no, no,” Scott croaks, panic splitting him. “No, no…”

Then there’s Charlie, leaning on the doorframe like he’s just won the Olympics, and high as a fucking kite. He grins at Scott, and poorly masked aggression pours over his body. “Put him in the chair,” Charlie announced, his words a little slurred. “Now.”

As they lock him into the Chair, the one he was in only hours earlier, Scott’s horror augments. SKM7 is a pale teen with brown hair; his head is completely slack, as the men strap him in, and his eyes are closed. One of the men pushes his head back and checks his eyes for any sign of consciousness. Nothing. It’s unnerving how limp he is, like a rag doll. He’s a wiry kid, a little muscle on bones, and he’s got a wide face peppered with bruises. He’s wearing a Star Wars hoodie, a bright blue one with “Trust me, I’m a Jedi” printed across the front, but the sleeves, as well as his hands, are spattered with blood. Probably fourteen or fifteen, this kid… His youth is obvious in everything about him: his neon green shoes, his sweatshirt, his oddly colored jeans, his hair… He’s even got a math formula scribbled across the back of his hand. And the fact that he’s unconscious, bloodied, and locked to the Chair by his wrists, ankles, and torso makes everything worse. “He’s…” Scott gasps, and Charlie’s smile only widens. “He’s just a kid. You made me track down a… a… teenager? So you could kidnap him, too?”

Charlie shrugs. As he stalks towards Scott, every step threatening, Scott feels every hair on his body stand on end; his body screams, _Danger! Danger! Get out!_ “Thanks, Lang,” Charlie says, ignoring the fact that there’s an unconscious fifteen-year-old behind them. “You did great.” He raises his hand—_no, no, fuck, no, he can’t take any more, he’ll break—_and claps Scott heartily on the shoulder. “I should give you a raise.” He chuckles to himself.

Scott’s blood boils, and he tries to swallow the fury rising in his throat, but he can’t— “So kidnapping a seven-year-old wasn’t good enough for you? You had to get a fifteen-year-old, too? What the hell?”

“He’s sixteen,” Charlie snaps; his expression before was tight, like he trapped all his anger inside of his mouth, but now it’s exploded all over his face. “And this was all _necessary_, you dumb fuck. I don’t go around kidnapping kids for fun.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Scott growls, and Charlie hits him so hard that he sees stars.

“Don’t forget” —Charlie’s face glistens with sweat, and his eyes narrow— “that’s _your_ pretty little seven-year-old I’ve got here. Next time you talk to me like that, I’ll take off one of her fingers, how’d you like that?”

Scott’s eyes widen, and his mouth bubbles up with blood and frantic pleas; Charlie backs away from him, muttering in disgust. “P-please, d-d-don’t—”

“You’ve got a new job, Lang,” interrupts Charlie, moving to stand beside Renee. He curls an arm around her shoulders, and she smirks. “If you do it right, your brat will be just fine.” Charlie smiles with his teeth this time, and Scott can see the drugged high leak into his too-wide grin. “With your help, we’re gonna change the world.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 2:46 AM**

_The door opens with a bang that seems to shake the room, and Tony jumps to his feet. Instinctually, he grabs his watch, slamming his fingers to the activation button that transforms it from a wristwatch to an Iron Man Gauntlet, raising his arm to—_

_“Peter?” says Pepper. She’s standing, too, but her hands are held out in comfort instead of aggression, her eyes trained on the figure who has now entered the room._

_It’s Peter, there’s no denying. He’s drenched from head to toe; his brown hair is plastered against his forehead and his red hoodie is now a wet shade of scarlet. His jeans cling to his skinny legs. There’s a blend of blood and water on his forehead, and he’s shaking, trembling like a wet leaf, his chest heaving. _

_Immediately, Tony transforms his gauntlet back into a watch and approaches the kid carefully. He’s never seen Peter like this before—terrified, panicking, anxious—and it chills him to the bone. He’s shivering now, breathing hard, but the air whistles through his throat in a dry whine. “Kid?” he calls out, taking a careful step forward. Peter’s hands are on his head now, fisting tightly in his dark hair as though he’s about to tear it from the roots. His eyes are blown with panic, darting around, and he won’t focus on Tony. “Kid, look at me.” Tony locks eyes with Pepper; her expression betrays the concern and fear that he feels. “Peter.” Nothing. He tries again. “Pete, kiddo, it’s me. What happened?”_

_Pepper moves forward, reaching out towards the kid, and alarm bells crash through Tony’s head. “_Don’t_,” Tony snaps, startling even himself with his bluntness, and Pepper immediately stops. Tony knows better than anyone what being mentally absent means for someone with superpowers; he doesn’t need another Bucky Barnes on his hands._

_After Peter’s arms finally drop, and his gaze lifts to Tony’s, the whole world seems to stop. “M-Mr. Stark?”_

_Tony’s shoulders slump in relief, and he takes another step towards Peter, still cautious. “Yeah, it’s me. You okay, kiddo?”_

_Peter presses his palm against his forehead, looking a little shocked when it comes back bloody. “Yeah, I just…”_

_Tony has never felt this worried before; anxiety cuts through him, hot and sharp. What happened to his kid? “Are you okay?” A million questions collide in his mind. Who did this to you? What could scare you like this? _

_But he chokes them all down as Peter stammers, staring at the newfound blood stemming from his head. “I’m _bleeding_…”_

_Fuck, this can’t be good. Something is wrong, gut-wrenchingly so, and Tony knows it. Peter can barely recognize the pain he is in, let alone the fact that he is bleeding, soaking wet, and standing in the middle of Tony’s kitchen. “Let’s sit down, okay, kiddo?” By the time Peter blinks in confused recognition, Tony has moved all the way to the kid, scanning him for further injury and guiding him to the kitchen table by placing a hand on his back—_

_Peter jerks away from him so violently that even Pepper startles, and the kid transforms from mentally absent to a terrified mess, his body vibrating in fear. But instead of attacking with his webshooters or hyper-reflexes like Tony expected, he curls in on himself, squeezing his eyes shut. What the hell? This is not the result of combat trauma or too much time in the field. This… This is something deeper, darker, sourced in something more sinister than Tony originally thought. “Okay, okay,” says Tony, thinking fuck, fuck, what the hell is happening— “You’re okay, Pete, you’re just fine; no touching, okay? I got it, I won’t touch you, you’re safe...” _

_He continues talking, coaxing Peter into at least a sliver of safety, until finally Peter opens his eyes again, gasping, “So-sorry, Mr. Stark, I’m sorry…” He looks pale, too pale, and it’s now that Tony realizes his lips are blue. Fucking _blue_._

_Tony’s heart twists violently. “You’re okay, kid, there’s nothing for you to be sorry for.” Tony’s left arm is throbbing now, that dull ache that always resounds when his anxiety spikes, and he tries to control the flutter of panic in his chest. “J-just come over here, okay? We’ll sit by the fire, you can warm up a little—you’re looking a little cold, Pete.”_

_Peter wraps his arm around himself as if suddenly noticing the fact that his teeth are chattering; glancing nervously at Tony, he nods slowly, following the man to the fireplace at the other end of the room. “FRIDAY,” says Tony, trying to stay calm for the sake of the kid, “turn up the heat, please.”_

_Thankfully, FRIDAY remains silent in her obedience, avoiding possibly startling the kid. Tony turns around to share a worried look with Pepper, then faces the kid again. Peter’s relaxing a little in the warmth of the fire, and before he knows it, Pepper’s beside him, holding out a blanket and a fresh change of clothes: Tony’s sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants Peter had left with them weeks ago. “Peter, honey?” she says, her voice gentle. “I brought you some dry clothes, do you want to—”_

_“No,” Peter croaks, suddenly tense again. “_No_.”_

_Peter’s clothes are dripping wet, and Tony knows how hypothermia works. He has to get him out of those wet clothes. “Kid?” he says, worry lacing his features. “You wanna take off your hoodie, at least, change into somethi—”_

_“No!” This time, Peter’s response is frantic, almost wild, and Tony immediately regrets his suggestion. “No, p-_please_—”_

_Horror flashes through Tony’s head; everything comes to a screeching halt. _Please_. It’s just one word, but it’s enough for Tony to know that something bad happened to his kid, something that brought Peter to such a point of suffering that he begged for it to stop. Tony wants to help him, to hug him, to hold him and tell him everything’s gonna be okay, but he can’t. Peter won’t let him touch him, and Tony’s not planning on violating his kid’s personal space when he’s scared. Tony’s not Howard; he won’t do that to Peter. Only one question flashes through his mind, burning hot: who hurt Peter? This whole situation is fucking terrifying Tony, and dark thoughts needle at the back of his mind, poking sharply—_don’t be stupid, Tony, you know the symptoms, you know what happened to him, why else would he be so scared of taking off his clothes_—and Tony’s hands clench into horrified, tense fists. No. Not Peter. No. He refuses to believe that. It’s too horrible to think about. _

_The kid shivers, his teeth clacking like typewriter keys._

_Tony doesn’t want to force the kid to do anything, not in this fragile state, but he’s becoming seriously anxious about Peter’s physical health. He has to focus on something he can fix, and right now, Tony can help Peter stay healthy. “FRIDAY,” he orders, as Peter takes the blanket and wraps it around himself with trembling hands, “Peter’s vitals, please.”_

_“Peter is currently experiencing a body temperature of 96 degrees, sir,” she responds carefully, “and rising. His heart rate is elevated. Otherwise, vitals are normal. He is in no immediate danger, but his brain waves signal significant distress.”_

_Peter doesn’t even look up at the sound of the familiar AI. He just stands by the fire, shivering. Tony feels like there are two spools of thread tightening around his lungs, one tugging him towards Peter to comfort him, the other yanking him away, reminding him of the expression of absolute fear on Peter’s face when Tony touched him earlier. Tony gulps and presses the palm of his hand against his quickening heart. He has to help him. Although FRIDAY told him that Peter’s life isn’t in danger, he can’t keep himself from panicking. _Significant distress,_ he echoes. _Significant fucking distress_. He’s never been in a situation like this before; Tony knows how to handle aliens, terrorists, and Stark Industries, but not the distraught, trembling, terrified mess of a kid in front of him. His kid, no less. _

_At the sound of a muffled whimper, Tony’s head snaps up to find Peter Parker sobbing, snot and tears and all, into his hands, his shoulders quaking. Peter Parker, this fucking invincible kid that he loves so much, crumples like a tin can without warning, collapsing to his knees._

_And Tony can’t do anything about it. He can’t even touch Peter. Instead, he kneels beside the kid, whispering comforting phrases to him, things he would want to hear if he was having a breakdown. “Hey, kiddo, you’re okay, you’ll be okay… You’re safe with me, just breathe, Pete, you’re gonna be fine...”_

_If this was a Lifetime movie, Peter would be hugging Tony now, embracing him like a son would do to a father, and he would tell him everything. Then he and Peter would ride off into the sunset, vowing to chase down the bad guy and lock him up for life._

_But this isn’t a movie. This is reality. So instead, Tony watches in anxious helplessness as his kid sobs, curling himself into a tight, lonely ball of shame before him. There is no sarcastic bravado or odd humor left in the boy: only Peter, his soul laid vulnerable before Tony’s eyes—_

—and Tony is gasping, straining for breath, and there’s a hand on his back, rubbing soothingly. “Bad dream, baby?”

Tony is still grappling with the fact that his heart is racing at a million miles an hour, and it takes him a moment to realize that Pepper is sitting up with him, trying to comfort him.

And the thing is, it _wasn’t_ a nightmare. That moment had been all too real. Peter had arrived without any warning on a cold, rainy day in March, dangerously quiet and unable to be touched without a violent reaction. Tony’s anxiety had never taken such a drastic turn. In the end, Pepper and Tony discovered, through broken sentences and lost whispers, that a man who Peter had known as a child, was back on the streets of Queens. _His name is Skip_, Peter had said, his voice deadly quiet, _and I never… I didn’t think I’d ever have to see him again. _They weren’t able to get anything else out of him, and after that he’d come back the next week like nothing had happened, laughing like he hadn’t been sobbing on the floor of Tony’s kitchen only seven days prior.

That was, by far, the worst moment of Tony’s parenthood, if he could call it that. Watching his kid suffer like that… Being completely unable to help him was like being set on fire.

Tony is calmer now, and Pepper’s hand is over his chest, making sure that his heartbeat slows down to normal. “You okay?” she asks, watching his expression carefully.

Tony’s left arm aches, and he grabs it subconsciously, rubbing his throbbing wrist. He doesn’t bother lying to Pepper; she knows him too well. “I dreamed about Peter,” he explains. If he wasn’t still reeling from the vivid dream, he would have cracked a joke about Finding Nemo and Pepper’s persistent fatherhood quips, but he’s too drained at the moment to do any of that.

“About what happened in March?” she suggests, giving him a knowing look.

Tony nods, dabbing at the sweat on his forehead.

“Do you want to… Do you want to talk about it?”

“No…” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m just gonna go to the lab, get my mind off of things.” He picks up the clock: 2:57 AM. “Oh, shit, Pepper, I’m sorry for waking you up, I know you have to go at like five, I didn’t mean—”

“Hey,” she says with a smile, tapping a finger against his chin, “you know what I always say. You can’t be sorry for things you can’t control, Tony. And you can’t control having a bad dream, right?”

That tightness in his chest loosens at her words, and he takes her hand, bringing it to his lips. He mumbles a “right” against her knuckles.

After Pepper crawls back into bed, Tony pulls on a sweatshirt, some plaid pants, and a pair of flip-flops before heading downstairs. Since his mansion was destroyed in 2012, he moved into Stark Tower; it became the height of his technological prowess and intellectual ability, but after it was compromised several times (and after returning them only reminded him of the broken pieces of the former Avengers team), he sold the Tower and moved into the new Avengers facility. They’ve constructed it and reconstructed it dozens of times, but finally Tony can call it his home, not just his company property. It’s located in upstate New York, in a stretch of lush land surrounded by trees and water, and there are separate spaces for every use, all connected by winding brick walkways. There’s a massive warehouse for storing equipment (connected to a lab for him to work in), a main building where he and Pepper can do official business, an apartment complex for the Avengers (if, for some reason, they ever got back together), a separate house for him and Pepper, and several other facilities. They’d decided long ago that it was healthier for them to divide Tony’s home life and his work life. He used to spend days in his lab, surviving off of coffee and protein bars to finish projects, but now he almost always sleeps in bed with Pepper unless one of them is gone on a work trip. It’s new, specifically for Tony, to have a home that doesn’t belong to Stark Industries, and it’s life-changing. He spends time with his family now, just watching movies with Rhodey and cooking with Pepper and playing dumb video games that Peter shows him, just because he can.

Now, he walks from his house to his lab; the grass is damp, tickling the sides of his feet. The moist air is refreshing, and his head is almost cleared in the five-minute walk to the workshop.

Inside is his refuge: tables upon tables of machine parts, chemical compounds, and computers. He can stay in here for hours at a time, simply tinkering. Tony settles down at one of the worktables, immediately picking up one of his in-progress works: the gunfire sensory system that he and Peter had been creating the night before. He fiddles around with it for a while; giving himself something technological to do usually helps him out of a funk. But even editing the code on Project Kevlar can’t distract him. Not when he’s thinking about Peter.

He contemplates calling Peter, just to make sure he’s okay, but it’s still three in the morning. Besides, Peter barely sleeps as it is without early morning phone calls from his mentor.

So instead, he pops an earpiece into his left ear and orders FRIDAY to call Rhodey.

It takes five calls to reach him. “Tony, it’s three fifteen.” His voice is a low, tired growl.

Tony relaxes in his chair. “I do have a clock,” he quips, but his voice is shaky. “Just couldn’t sleep, Rhodey.”

A series of shuffles. “Are you okay?”

His head throbs. “Just peachy, _Mom_. Tell me a joke.” Pepper would’ve made him talk about it, to his therapist or to her, but Rhodey always tries to cheer him up instead. It’s the best thing about him; Rhodey knows that Tony’s a fucked up guy, but when they’re together, Tony feels normal.

Rhodey, detecting that familiar, anxious quiver in his voice, doesn’t question Tony’s request. He starts telling a funny story about a cadet and a dog, and Tony loses himself in it, wanting to think of anything else. Rhodey talks until Tony’s mind is numb, disconnected from his nightmare. “...don’t you think, Tony?”

Tony laughs weakly. “You know, your jokes really don’t get better with age.”

“Think so? Bet you couldn’t tell one better.”

“Rhodey, at least when I tell a story, people don’t start snoring after the first—”

A wild screech shakes his eardrums, so violent and fucking loud that his whole body goes taut like a bowstring, going painfully rigid in a failed attempt to escape the sound—

—pain hammers his head, but it’s only a vague afterthought compared to the horrible fucking _sound_ quaking his brain like a speaker on steroids, like an MMA fighter shaking a rag doll—

—colors flashing above him, pale blue and strawberry blonde; his brain is melting, exploding in sound, he can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t—

—it dies to a dull roar, and Tony’s whole body uncoils as he comes back to his senses. His cheek against cold floor, thin fingers prying his hands away from his ears, two overlapping voices calling his name—

He can still feel the sound there, like his head’s been filled with a thousand rubber hammers, and somehow he manages to uncoil himself and focus on the woman in front of him. _Pepper_. “Tony! Tony, look at me!” He blinks; a high-pitched whine oscillates in his eardrums, and he sways with the noise as he tries to right himself.

There’s a sound in his left ear, another voice. “Tony? What’s going on? Can you hear me? Tony!”

He swallows, for the first time since the noise began, and the action itself feels painful. He blinks (once, twice, three times), and finally he can see Pepper in front of him, trying to meet his wandering gaze. “Fuck” is the first thing he says, through gritted teeth. “My head…” He shifts, trying to sit up.

“Don’t get up, Tony,” she warns, pushing him back down. “Just take a second.”

He reaches up and touches his left ear, where the earpiece is still lodged. “Tony?” Rhodey prompts.

“Yeah…” Tony winces. He can barely hear his own voice. “I’m fine, I’ll call you back.” He clicks the end button on the earpiece and pulls it out, still stunned.

As he comes back to his senses, Pepper starts to explain, saying that FRIDAY had been compromised and set off a blaring alarm once her systems recognized an intruder. “That thing in your ear,” she says, picking it up, “played the sound a little too loud.”

Tony nearly laughs out loud. Here he thought that he was going crazy, that he was suffering for all those weapons he’d fired, but it had just been FRIDAY’s odd alarm system. He groans, the ringing in his head now a dull whine. “FRIDAY, what happened? Compromised?”

His lovely AI responds only with unnerving silence. Pepper helps Tony into a sitting position, examining his ear. “Yeah, Tony,” she states, “FRIDAY hasn’t been responding. Not since the alarm went off.”

“Then how’d you turn it off?” he asks, confused.

Pepper shrugs. “You’re the artificial intelligence guru; she just turned off, and she hasn’t said anything since.”

Usually, Tony would be annoyed that FRIDAY had simply shut down like this, but it’s a well-received distraction from the Peter-heavy thoughts buzzing in his head. “Well, I guess I’ve got a job to do, then.”

Once Pepper ensures that Tony is okay, save a little hearing loss, she heads out for her next meeting, one with a Chinese computer company in Boston. “I should be back by this evening, okay?” She kisses his forehead. “Take care of yourself,” she reminds him. “I know FRIDAY’s a little messed up, but that doesn’t mean you can just forget to eat, okay? I’ll send Happy to check on you around lunch. And get Cho to check out that ear. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Tony, back in his spinning lab chair, turns to look at her. “Stupid? Me? Baby, I would _never_.”

Pepper smirks at him, but it’s playful, and Tony finds himself still picturing her face even once she’s left the workshop. Despite the fact that it’s almost four in the morning, and there’s a little trickle of blood coming from his ear, he still feels a little safer, just because Pepper is here with him.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 4:19 AM**

Peter’s mouth is a bitter handful of acidic soap, leaking down his throat and churning in his stomach. There’s a horrible pain in his lower abdomen, spreading wide inside of him, and every inch of his skin buzzes with paralysis. His limbs are heavy; his bones must be made of steel now—he can’t move them, he can’t move _at all_.

He forces his eyes open, but his eyelids are heavy, _too_ heavy, and he only recognizes flashes of bland color before they shut again. There’s a voice bouncing around him, one he recognizes, male and tired and _scared_.

Pain dances through his skull—iron dancers with sharpened heels—and a sound escapes him, something low and guttural. He’s so far from reality that he’s floating, but now he’s sinking back down to Earth. He can feel something cold and _bad_ inside him, and he _fights_ it, shifting and stirring and shaking. He tries to talk, to plead for help, to cry out, but his words tumble out of his mouth like loose marbles, and then the background ramblings of the familiar voice stop, overlapped by newer, sharper voices.

“He’s…”

Peter’s hair tugged to pull his head back. Hands on his face.

“Watch…”

Exhaustion washing over him. Cold fingers prying at his eyes, open, open, _open_.

“…but already…would…dangerous…”

Someone fumbling at his sleeve, ripping. A foreign voice in his ear.

“Doesn’t matter…give…more…”

A pinch inside of his elbow. The world tilting before his half-closed eyes. A rush of cold, and then everything is blurry.

“…going…”

Peter’s eyes roll into the back of his head, and jagged darkness swallows him.


	2. COPYCAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In the center is a chair with its back to him, where a dark-haired person sits, their entire body obscured by the chair._
> 
> _Tony hates the way his skin crawls; it’s like all his nerve endings are on fire. Who the hell is in that chair? The camera moves with a jerk, transferred by someone’s shaky grip around the whole chair until it settles in front of it—_
> 
> _All the blood drains out of Tony’s face. _

**APRIL 7 — 4:55 AM**

FRIDAY is fucked.

Tony, for all of his engineering expertise, can’t understand what could have made her shut down like this. FRIDAY is _ his_, after all; how could something so easily break her? He installed that alarm system to let him know whenever someone tried to hack her, but no one had ever been _ successful_. It would take state-of-the-art computer gear, intelligence that rivaled his, incredible perseverance, years of hacking experience, and overwhelming knowledge of computers, coding, electrical engineering, and artificial intelligences. Who could have done this? FRIDAY is pliant now, easily moldable to whoever (probably a teenage hacker or some rival company) wants to use her.

He takes another gulp of coffee and rubs his forehead. He’s been working for about an hour now, and he’s got _ nothing_. He spins to face a glowing blue screen that’s supposed to display FRIDAY’s error messages; it’s empty. FRIDAY’s silence is unnerving, but not dangerous... _ yet_. Honestly, he’s impressed by whoever managed to hack her; it takes a lot. He might have to hire them when he’s done tracking them down and giving them an Iron Man bitchslap.

He smirks to himself as he types more, checking FRIDAY’s basic output before the incident. Everything looks normal.

_ 4-7-19 2:56 - TURN ON MAIN LIGHT - BEDROOM - DIM _

_ 4-7-19 3:01 - UNLOCK FRONT DOOR - HOUSE _

_ 4-7-19 3:02 - TURN ON PATH LIGHTS - HOUSE TO LAB - DIM _

_ 4-7-19 3:10 - UNLOCK FRONT DOOR - LAB _

_ 4-7-19 3:26 - CALL “rhodeybear” _

_ 4-7-19 3:43 - ALERT 13C - DIGITAL INTRUDER _

_ 4-7-19 3:46 - MAIN SYSTEMS COMPROMISED - INITIATE PROTO— _

From that point forward, FRIDAY’s output is eerily absent. As Tony Stark’s AI, she was built to respond to any situation; if she had more time, she might’ve switched all security to manual controls and re-encrypted all of her systems so that Tony could at least provide safety for the compound, but she didn’t have the time before something halted her actions completely.

He still has access to all of his Stark Industries and personal files, as well as all of her engineering capabilities; through various tests, he recognizes that FRIDAY has lost all of her autonomy, but her basic foundations of code, secure information, and technological ability still stand.

Tony sets basic parameters to keep all of the physical security systems intact, and then he gets to work. He has to find out who attacked FRIDAY.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 7:03 AM**

The kids are asleep when Julia leaves for work that morning, but Cristian’s awake making them breakfast. “Up already, Julia?” he asks. 

“Yeah.” She pours herself a cup of coffee, takes a sip. “I’m opening up Charlie’s investigation today. Keep an eye on the kids, okay?”

He’s behind her now, and he puts his hand on her arm. They share a quick, sweet kiss. “Of course I will. Be safe.”

There’s a lingering tone of worry behind his words—he’s worried about what will happen when she finds Charlie. “Don’t worry.” Julia kisses him again. “He’s my brother, Cristian. He would never hurt me.”

* * *

Julia walks into the police station an hour earlier than usual—she needs time to formulate her case for the missing drug addicts. By the time she’s had her morning coffee and settled down at one of the main computers to draft her proposal, her boss, Lieutenant Huang, tracks her down. “You’re here early, Sergeant,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What’s wrong?”

The worry in her mind grows, folding over itself. “Nothing, Lieutenant,” she lies. “Just thought I’d finish up some work from yesterday.”

Huang gives her a hard stare. “Don’t lie to me, Paz. You’re about as good at that as you are at getting here early.”

Julia checks herself, quickly; she straightens her back, adjusts her uniform, and clasps her hands behind her back. “Sir,” she announces, “I’d like permission to start a case concerning the recent strain of missing drug addicts here in Queens.”

Huang visibly stiffens at her request, but she can’t tell what’s running through his mind—disbelief, anger, frustration? Something flashes across his face (annoyance, perhaps), and he frowns at her. “And how did you come across this idea, Sergeant?”

Julia clears her throat once (it’s always been a nervous tic of hers) and then explains, saying that she got an anonymous tip about the subject from a rehabilitated drug addict; Julia conveniently forgets to mention that Ty, her tip, fell back into drugs only a few weeks after rehab. “He was terrified when I spoke to him, Lieutenant.” Her voice is stern, as though she’s talking to one of her children instead of her boss. She tries to drain the harshness out of her voice, but it’s so difficult when she’s talking about her family, her _ brother_. “Many of his colleagues have gone missing in the past weeks, the most recent being two days ago, sir.”

“And none of these were reported,” he adds, the assumption clear on his face, “because those who would report them missing fear legal repercussions.”

“Exactly, sir.”

As Lieutenant Huang drops into silence, she watches his expression carefully. She knows the thoughts that must be flitting through his mind: that drug addicts go missing all the time, that they probably suffered from a group overdose, that drugs were unpredictable, that she had nothing to worry about… But when he looks at her again, she only finds mild exhaustion in his eyes. “I’ll let you pursue this addict case,” he says finally, “as long as you keep up with your other work—”

Relieved gratitude floods her body. “Oh, thank you, sir, I—”

“—and take on a new child abduction case.”

Her brain stutters to a hesitant halt; she clears her throat again, anxiety sliding down the back of her neck. “Child abduction…”

“I know you’re not a fan, but I’m really understaffed right now, Paz, what with that break-in recently—”

“Not a _ fan _ ?” Julia repeated. She’d never once taken a child abduction case, and everyone at the station knew it. As a mother of two young children, she could hardly look at a child abduction case without thinking about Leila or Jaime in the same position. She adamantly refused child abduction and exploitation cases, mostly because they became so _ persona_, even if she never did field work for the case. “No. No. Absolutely not. Huang, you _ know _ I don’t take those kinds of cases; put me on something else.”  
  
Huang holds out a glowing tablet to her, his grip light. “Take this case, or lose your addict one. It’s your choice.”

Julia’s mouth goes dry; she presses her lips together, releasing her hands from their irontight grip behind her back. She only has one thought: _ I have to save my brother_. Fear, courage, skill… It doesn’t matter. She has to find Charlie. “Fine,” she grunts, snatching the tablet from him to read the first line: _ Case 854-13V - Child Abduction: Cassandra Marie Paxton, Age Seven. _

This is going to be a long couple of weeks, Julia knows. But at least now she has a true way to find her missing brother. Now, at least, she can breathe easy.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 7:49 AM**

Hope arrives at the hospital the following morning, nearly frantic with worry. Maggie relayed the past twenty-four hours to her in voicemails, but she didn’t get any of her calls until that morning. “I was asleep,” she explains. “I leave my phone off, I’m so sorry…” How odd. Hope feels gentler now, less fire-and-brimstone, softened by the blow of Cassie’s kidnapping in strange contrast to her usual hard self. The shield Hope constructs around herself constantly is gone. “And Cassie…”

“Where’s Scott?” Maggie snaps, startling Hope out of her dazed, depressive state. “Is he coming?”

Already vulnerable, Hope’s guilt spills across her face like red paint on a white wall, flooding her skin. “I… I didn’t know… I…”

“What?” Hope (she curses herself for her weakness) is frustratingly inept right now, wringing her hands. “What happened? Where is he?”

Hope glances at Jim, helpless. “I’m sorry.”

Jim shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Hope, please,” he says calmly. “Tell us what you know.”

Hope’s frantic hand movements slow, and finally she confesses. “I haven’t seen Scott in three days,” she begins, her voice weakened by guilt. “We had this big fight, and, um—shit, sorry-” She rubs at her watery eyes, trying her best not to break down in front of the couple. “He… He left to go stay with Luis, just for a few days, and he stop—stopped answering my phone calls, but I thought he—that he was just ignoring me, but when y-_ you _ called, I-I, sorry, I—” Hope is fully crying now, tears taking turns treading down both cheeks, her face thrumming with anguish, but strangely, she’s pretending that she isn’t, turning and brushing away each tear with a messy swipe of her hand. “I went to go—to go check on him, ‘cause he wouldn’t answer even when I mentioned Ca-Cassie, and I called Luis whe-when he wouldn’t open the door, and” —Hope clenches her hands into tight fists— “he told me he-he hadn’t been at his apartment in a while, that he was out staying with some family, and so I broke in, and it was—” She gulps. “I-it was a wreck, there was blood on the kitchen table, and Scott was-he was _ gone. _ Someone _ took _him.”

Maggie slumps back in her hospital bed; Hope winces, letting the blow of her words echo in the sterilized air.

“I already—I told the police,” Hope continues, quieter. “I’m sorry. I’m _ sorry_.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 10:20 AM**

It’s too quiet in his cell; Scott’s never done well with silence. He’s the kind of person who will cram his brain with loud music whenever he’s alone, stammer about the newest _ Game of Thrones _episode whenever there’s an awkward gap in conversation. It’s part of why being under house arrest was so difficult for him. His mind starts to make up noises to fill the silence: faint screams, violent hisses, and frantic whispers. At first, he thinks he’s going crazy, but soon he realizes that most of the sounds are coming from the mostly unconscious teenager in the chair only a few feet away from him.

Guilt pangs in Scott’s chest, bouncing off of his ribs. The kid’s moving his head now, mumbling incoherently; a string of saliva slides down his chin, and all of a sudden, his eyes go comically wide before he blinks lethargically, lids closing over bloodshot eyes. His face goes through several expressions—confusion, irritation, panic, pain, determination, anger, frustration, back to panic—before falling slack again, succumbing to whatever drug sloshes through his veins.

Scott gulps down his guilt; it’s his fault this kid is in this mess in the first place, but he had no _ choice_. They would have tortured Cassie again, and he can’t… Memories claw at the surface of his brain, of screams that set his blood on fire and pain that rocks his entire body. 

He can’t do that again.

Mason sits in the corner, nodding off, a McDonald’s burger in one hand and his hammer in the other. Whenever his head dips too low, heavy with sleep, he jerks awake again, glares cautiously at Scott, and takes another bite of his burger. 

It’s confusing how _ human _ Mason is. Scott would have expected a blockbuster villain with a hockey mask and a pair of red eyes to be his torturer, not this six-foot-one man with a hooked nose who eats McDonald’s, chews his nails ragged, and flinches wildly whenever Charlie enters the room. He’s a brute, for sure, but he’s not sadistic or psychopathic. He’s just _ scared. _Strangely enough, Scott sees familiar terror reflected in his enemy’s eyes; Mason’s just as chillingly afraid of Charlie as Scott is.

So when Charlie shoves the door open and gargles an order at Mason, Scott doesn’t miss the way the smaller man scrambles to his feet with trembling knees. “Charlie—he’s been working hard this whole time, I swear, I made sure he was going fast as he—”

“Fine,” he snaps back, shoving the man aside. His voice is tighter now, agitated, thrumming with dark determination. “Lang?” 

As Charlie’s eyes settle on him, near-hysterical alarm nails between his ribs. “I—well, um, after shutting his AI down, I got a—um, connection, to all the electronic devices in—um, in Stark’s lab, but I can’t get—um, override the computer screens without disabling all, um, all the computer’s functions—but I can override the TV, but it won’t have audio…”

Charlie gives him a sour look.

“...b-but with the equipment, um, that we have, we could just use the audio from the phone,” Scott finishes. “We could hook up the microphone? Th-then we could, uh,_ he _ could hear everything in the room?”

“How long?” 

Scott scrapes his mind for a number, anything he can give to Charlie to tame the beast for a few seconds. He’s really high now, his pupils gaping with whatever drug he’s on, so every movement he makes is on the offense. “An hour, maybe less.”

“Fine. An hour, or your kid—”

“No, no, no—an hour, that’s all I need, I swear.”

Charlie scowls, turns on his heel, and leaves the room.

Scott’s chest tightens. 

He gets to work.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 11:11 AM**

Tony is an hour into a deep hack of FRIDAY’s software when everything goes black. “What the _ hell _?” He backtracks for something he could have done to interfere with the electrical wiring of the lab, but he wasn’t anywhere near that part of FRIDAY’s systems. What the fuck just happened?

His computers are dizzyingly quiet. No lights, no tech… Even the quiet hum of air conditioning is gone. DUM-E and U are both eerily still, not even a beep or a whir to reassure Tony that they’re still awake. Tony’s never experienced silence quite this loud; the absence of his machines, the beating heart of his lab, is surreal. He spams the on-off button on every piece of tech in the room: his computers, his television, the coffee machine… He taps the screen of his StarkPhone, confused at its obstinate inactivity. Nothing but darkness, silence, and Tony slamming his fingers against unresponsive keys until—

—the grating purr of static from the television in the corner of the room, buzzing incessantly; as the only noise in the entire lab, it’s impossible to miss, so as soon as it turns on, Tony scrambles over to it, searching for an explanation to the sudden shutdown in the most technologically advanced hub in New York, probably in the United States. 

Before Tony’s eyes, the tangled black and white dots blink (once, twice) before the screen whites out completely and the audio cuts out. “The hell…” Tony mutters, trying to adjust the channel setting on the TV. The lights begin to flicker on, blinking erratically for a minute before returning to normal, followed by the air conditioning, the computer systems, and the rest of the electricity. A surge of euphoria rushes through him. “Thank God!” FRIDAY isn’t back yet, still dead to Tony’s commands, but at least he has his tech back.

The phone’s loud beeping interrupts his thoughts, but Tony ignores it and goes back to work. He doesn’t really care who’s calling him—he’s tending to FRIDAY right now, and no one actually calls his lab except for Happy, occasionally, and other workers in Stark Industries. They can wait. Everyone in his family (Pepper, Peter, Rhodey, Happy, etc) know to call him on his cell phone for any real emergencies.

As Tony forages through his computer’s history to discover what caused the blackout glitch, the phone beside him chimes again, bleating maddeningly. “FRIDAY, mute—” He stops. Fuck, right, FRIDAY’s gone radio-silent. He groans and rubs his fingers against his aching temples. How the hell did this happen?

Fed up, he picks up the phone at last. It’s probably just Happy, calling to check on him. “Tony’s Pizza,” he grumbles. “May I take your fucking order?”

A male voice on the other end. “Stark.”

“Yeah, I know” —Tony types furiously into his computer— “the blackout wasn’t ideal, and FRIDAY’s having a little trouble, but we’re doing our best, she just needs some time to—”

“Stark.” Again, this time louder. 

Tony’s barely listening. “—rest; I found something that could lead us to whatever knocked her out—”

“Stark.”

“What?” Tony snaps. It suddenly dawns on him that the man on the other line calls him _ Stark. _ Not _ Tony, _ not _ Tones_, not _ Mr. Stark, _ not _ sir. _ Not even _ boss_, like FRIDAY would. “Who the hell is this?”

A snort, halfway between a laugh and a sneeze. “I’m Charlie,” he announces. “And before you ask, no, I don’t work for you.” 

Dread coils in Tony’s gut. Everything is _ off _: the man’s voice is too slippery, his words too careful. “Then get off the line, moron. I don’t know how you got access to this number, but it’s not—”

“I called you a week ago, motherfucker.” A turgid chuckle. “Don’t you remember me?”

It all dawns on Tony at once. He _ does _recognize this guy’s voice, from a strange call he got late one night while working in his lab.

_ Tony doesn’t usually listen to the extravagant rants of his late-night fans, especially ones that sound stoned up to their necks, but only two seconds after introducing himself over the phone, he says something that made Tony freeze. “Do you know anything about the organization called HYDRA?” _

_ Tony pauses, his thumb inches away from the END CALL button. His thoughts skid to a blurry halt. _ HYDRA_. “What?” _

_ “HYDRA,” repeats the man on the other end. Tony can’t remember what his name is; he’s too busy reeling in shock. How does this stoned Tony Stark fan know anything about the über-secret paramilitary terrorist group that has been wreaking havoc on the Avengers’ lives for years? “I mean, shit, you’re Iron Man. I think you know what I’m sayin’, don’t you?” _

_ “Sure,” Tony responds. He’s pacing now, wearing holes into the floor of his lab. “Let’s say I know about HYDRA. What’s it to you?” _

_ Tony can almost hear the smile in the man’s voice. “HYDRA was a cult,” he explains, “but they were fucking brilliant, too. They used some kind of energy source—like yours, your arc tech, right? Called it the Tesseract. Back in their prime years, they had these weapons…” A contented sigh. “Fuck, they were incredible, Stark. Could fucking disintegrate a person from inside out; hit them anywhere, and they’d be gone. Poof. Not even ashes to bury.” _

_ Tony’s concerned confusion warps into something deeper. He’s careful with his next words. “Yeah, okay. Pretty dangerous stuff. I think I can speak for the rest of humanity when I say that I’m glad they were destroyed when the star-spangled man in tights took them down in—” _

_ “That kind of power is… is… unheard of. Forget bullets. Forget firearms. Those weapons would trump any gun today, Stark. The person who had that kind of weapon would rule the fucking world.” _

_ “Yeah, if you’re Hitler,” Tony snaps. “Look, man, here in America, we don’t put people in power just because they have the most firepower; you can’t—” _

_ “Will you help me?” _

_ Tony stops pacing. DUM-E whirs in confusion at his sudden halt in movement. “What?” _

_ The man continues, undeterred by the tones of astonishment in Tony’s voice. “Stark tech, I mean, it’s the best.” His words are starting to slur, stringing together. “Arc reactor tech is so _ close _ to the energy source that HYDRA used. I know all about it. About _ you. _ If you made that weapon, the one they had back then, you could control the world. You’d only have to fire it once, really, for the whole world to know how fucking _ powerful _ you are. Just imagine, Stark. The world at your fingertips.” _

_ “That’s called terrorism, bud,” Tony intruded. “You know, you should probably see someone about that. Fear tactics? Not good. Hope you’re not into politics. The general population doesn’t take well to violence as a campaign strategy—” _

_ “Don’t play dumb!” snaps the other man, fury rattling the phone. “I know you understand me! We could bring peace to the whole fucking planet!” _

_ Tony doesn’t usually have people scream at him over the phone—that’s a job reserved solely for Pepper, if anyone at all, so listening to this man screech about HYDRA to him on a Thursday night is such a foreign concept. “Okay, don’t get your panties in a bunch—” _

_ “You remember what your father used to say, don’t you?” _

_ At the words ‘your father,’ something in Tony’s brain flips on, an old, rusty light; he goes quiet, rendered speechless. _

_ “‘Peace,” echoes the man, “means having a bigger stick than the other guy.’” _

_ Those are Howard Stark’s words, alright. Those are the words that Tony used to justify every weapons deal he ever made. Years of violence and not caring who bled in his wake, all backed by those fucking words. “No,” Tony says quietly, “it doesn’t.” _

_ “Aw, don’t tell me you’re one of those fucking hippies, sticking flowers in guns or whatever the fuck they do—you’re Iron Man! You build weapons for a living!” _

_ “ _ Built_,” corrects Tony, with an icy tone to his voice. “Now, I build shields.” _

_ “So you won’t help me?” Now, his voice is desperate, hung on Tony’s next words. _

_ “No!” Tony frowns. “Like I said, your violence slash world domination tactic? Not really my style. That means get lost, creep.” _

_ He hangs up before the guy on the other line can say anything else. _

“...you’re that psycho?” Tony says, waiting for the grating voice on the other end to confirm his assumption.

“I’m not _ crazy_!” he snarls back, outraged. “My idea is brilliant. Just because you can’t _ see _it…” An irritated sigh. “It doesn’t matter. Because now you’re going to help me.”

“_ Help _you?” Tony laughs. “Buddy, I’m about half a second away from calling the authorities on your ass.”

A chuckle reverberates from the other end of the phone; that’s _ not _the response Tony was expecting. “I wouldn’t if I were you, Stark. Turn around.”

It’s then that Tony realizes he can no longer see the eerie glow of a white screen on the wall in front of him. Every hair on his body stands on end; he spins around quickly, launching the Iron Man gauntlet attached to his wristwatch, but instead of an attacker, he finds—

—the television screen behind him: a silent, high-definition image of a small gray room, mostly empty. In the center is a chair with its back to him, where a dark-haired person sits, their entire body obscured by the chair.

Tony hates the way his skin crawls; it’s like all his nerve endings are on fire. Who the hell is in that chair? The camera moves with a jerk, transferred by someone’s shaky grip around the whole chair until it settles in front of it—

All the blood drains out of Tony’s face. 

_ Peter_.

Seeing him is like blade punched deep in his gut—it’s not possible, it’s not _ fucking possible— _ but there he is, Tony’s invincible spider-kid, chained to a fucking chair in some kind of fucking torture room. Other than the bruise swelling on the side of his face and the blood staining his knuckles, Peter seems fine, but he’s in _ danger_. Tony’s grip clenches like iron around the phone. Peter’s still wearing the clothes he wore when he left Tony’s lab last night. How… How is this even possible? _ Peter went home, _he thinks. Aunt May was supposed to take him to get Thai food at this nice new restaurant. Peter wouldn’t shut up about it the whole afternoon. There’s no way… He can’t even think—

That slimy asshole on the other end of the phone is still talking. “...refused to help,” he’s saying, pride twisting into his words, “so I had to take some extreme measures.”

Rage flares in Tony’s chest, pulsing with each quickening heartbeat. “He’s not—”

“And before you go claiming you don’t know him,” continues Charlie, “I’ll just give a quick recap of what we found in your files on him.” Ever-darkening horror sinks into him, puncturing his skin. He only holds Peter’s files on his most secure server—FRIDAY’s server. This psychotic stoner couldn’t have— “Peter Benjamin Parker, sixteen-year-old kid at Midtown High, from Queens, does decathlon and… what’s that? Loves mint chocolate chip ice cream? You really are thorough with this shit.” He chuckles. “How am I doing so far, _ Tony _?”

“Fuck you—”

“His parents—deceased. Moved in with his lovely aunt, May Parker and his uncle, but he died, too. Jesus, this kid’s got worse luck than me! And here we have an entire list of documented injuries—we’ll save that for later—ooh, finally, the belle of the ball” —fear rattles Tony’s rib cage— “you tell everyone he’s your intern, but he’s Spiderman, isn’t that right?” 

Every alert in Tony’s brain screeches wildly. _ He knows_. He starts to protest, but Charlie cuts him off. 

“Deny it,” he growls, “and your precious Peter Parker will pay, you understand me? I know your kind; you rich fucks think you can just shit all over us, but not this time. I’ve got him, and I know what he means to you. He comes over to your place all the time, doesn’t he? I’m surprised you haven’t gotten out any adoption papers.”

Fury he never thought he had unfurls inside of his chest, bursting through his mouth. “Fuck you,” Tony snarls, “that’s my—”

That’s when Charlie whips around and slaps Peter across the face so hard that his head whips to the side; Tony recognizes with a painful jolt how fucking _ unresponsive _ he is. A hit like that… It’s not something you can sleep through. His eyes are half-open, drugged slits that barely widen at the blow; his head rolls on his neck, slack, and sweat pours over his skin. The camera is horrifically high-tech, Peter’s suffering defined so well that it almost feels like he’s watching a new episode of _ How To Get Away With Murder _instead of a livestream of the kid’s torture. The only sign of true consciousness comes from Peter’s fingers, which twitch as if in protest, strangled by pain. It’s such a blatant contradiction of the hyperactive, fast-talking, high-spirited kid he knows so well, and it chills him to the bone.

“The great Tony Stark,” snickers another voice through the phone, and as Tony’s senses return to him, he realizes he can hear faint groans on the other end of the line. “Speechless.” 

That’s _ Peter_, moaning in pain, barely clinging to consciousness. That’s _ Peter_, the wonderful sixteen-year-old who helps little old ladies carry their groceries, even when he’s not Spiderman. That’s _ Peter, _who can barely make it through a sentence without making a Star Wars reference. “What the hell did you do to him?” Tony snaps.

“He’s some freak, that kid,” declares Charlie. “It took like six fucking doses of sedatives just to get him on the ground, and we still had to knock him out after, and that stuff’s supposed to knock the fucking Winter Soldier on his ass—”

And that’s why Peter looks like he’s overdosed on sleeping pills. “He’s just a kid!” growls Tony, protective rage flurrying through his brain. _ My _ kid, he forgets to say. He’s _ my _kid.

“A kid?” interrupts another, a twitchy, scruffy man with his arm in a black sling. “That _ kid _nearly took my fucking arm off!”

“He’s _ sixteen _—”

On screen, the man named Charlie responds, poking a metal object into Peter’s bruised cheek. “I don’t fucking care how old he is! I don’t care if he’s in fucking _ kindergarten_! That—that _ freak _took down five of my best guys with a broken arm and a truckload of the Winter Soldier’s sedatives in him.”

Blood trickles down Peter’s cheek, and Tony watches Peter stir, his limbs twisting weakly against the cuffs. “_Jesus—_just don’t hurt him, please… Listen, I don’t know what you want, but you can have it, okay? Just leave him _alone_.” Under different circumstances, Tony and Peter would be able to fight their way out of this one, one clad in red-and-gold, the other in red-and-blue, but not right now. His first priority is to get Peter _the_ _hell out of there_. “I’m the one you want, right? To make your world-peace gun? Let him go, and take me.” His breath is caught in his lungs, sticking like peanut butter inside of him as he awaits Charlie’s answer. “Take_ me_,” he repeats.

Charlie laughs a little bit—a wet, violent sound—and Tony’s hope fizzles out. “Don’t I wish, Stark. But unfortunately, you’ve got as much security as the fucking president, and people tend to notice when the most famous billionaire in the US goes missing. Even your little miss Potts is untouchable. Your place is a fucking fortress.” He shrugs. “So we took the next best thing. Your Spider-kid. That’s what you call him, right?” 

Reality screeches in Tony’s ears—no, no, _ no! _ He only calls him that when they’re in private, how… Sickening understanding—FRIDAY’s unusual shutdown, the exposure of his files… That was no coincidence. That was him. This… This is all _ Charlie_. 

“Your precious little freak,” Charlie continues, ignorant to Tony’s realization. He shoves the point of the object (a knife, Tony sees with an electrifying wave of fear) through the flesh of Peter’s cheek—a garbled moan of pain clashes with Tony’s stammered “n-no!”

Charlie smiles at the camera, one fist in Peter’s hair, pulling Peter’s head back against the headrest, the other pushing the knife deeper. “This is your life now, Stark,” he declares, his forehead shining with sweat and pride. “You’re gonna make my fucking weapon, and I’m gonna take this freak apart piece by piece. Every day until you finish.”

Then he slides out the knife, eliciting another groan of protest from semi-conscious Peter, and flips it down, stabbing it directly into the kid’s broken left forearm with a horrific _ crunch _as metal meets bone.

Peter’s scream makes every bone on Tony’s body light on fire—he can’t breathe, he can’t think, his knees wobble—Charlie’s twisting the knife—anger bursts into panic, bubbling over in his aching chest— “Stop, _ stop it! _ I’ll do it— _ I’ll do it, I’ll make your fucking weapon!” _

A victorious grin. Charlie’s hand stops, pulling the knife out, and a woman beside him presses a bandage to the bleeding wound as Peter whimpers. “I thought you might.”

Tony wants to rip his face apart with his bare hands; helpless, he watches his hijacked television screen as Peter chokes on the pain of his new wound. 

Instead, he thinks of how he can get Peter home safely—his mind flits through all of his technological expertise, hacks, _ anything_. He has to get Peter out of that hellhole— _ now_.

Charlie’s talking more, rambling about some “rules” he made up for Tony. “...and remember, we’re watching you, Stark. We got access to all your pretty little computers, all your cameras, all your robots, all your fancy tech. We can see _ all _ of it. Break one of my rules, and your kid pays the price.” He lets go of Peter’s hair, letting his chin drop to his chest, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans and squinting at it. “One, don’t leave your lab. We’ll supply you with any science shit you need, and food and shit. Two, don’t talk to anybody—text, email, call, whatever. No fucking cops. If someone gets suspicious, you tell _ us_, but don’t talk to them. I don’t need you spillin’ your guts about the whole operation, got it? Don’t try to get out of this, I fucking swear. A _ word _ of this gets out and your precious kid loses his hands, got it? Three, treat me with some fucking respect.” He crouches by Peter’s bloody hand and yanks the knife out. “Four, work as fast as you can. Five, don’t try to find us. If you do, you’ll pay, you’ll fucking pay, I swear. Six, don’t be fucking suspicious. Someone comes to ask what you’re doing, tell ‘em to go fuck themselves. Say you’re working on the next best thing. Say anything you want—just don’t be fucking suspicious.” His teeth glint on the screen. “And seven—any time you break my rules” —he waves the bloody knife at the camera— “I break Parker. Understand, Stark?”

Tony gulps, swallowing the lump of terror in his throat. It takes everything in him not to scream at this psycho, but he’s got Peter. He’d only be making it worse. “Understood,” he grunts through gritted teeth.

Then the line clicks off, and Tony’s left in unnatural silence. _ I am Iron Man, _he thinks, and then he says it out loud. “I am Iron Man,” he repeats. Better yet, he is Tony Stark. Genius. Inventor. Hacker. Scientist. Charlie and his gang of misfit toys have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.

No one messes with Tony Stark.

No one messes with Tony Stark’s _ kid_.

Without a moment to waste, Tony Stark gets to work.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 11:48 AM**

As soon as Charlie finally hung up on Tony Stark, the other people in the room—Charlie’s wife, Renee, and Mason, follow their leader out of the room, and then it hits barely twenty seconds later—virulent tracking software coming from Tony Stark’s computer, hidden beneath layers of weapons research files, software actively seeking their current location. 

On the computer screen before him, Tony’s infectious software spreads, attacking the careful code Scott had written only hours prior; panic surges in his chest, thumping frantically. If he leaves Tony to his own devices, allowing him to hack into the HYDRA laptop and access their location, then he has a chance at saving himself and his daughter. And that kid in the StarWars hoodie. _ Peter. _He could save him, too.

But if they find out… Scott shoves his fear down and cracks a smile instead. As the screen flickers to black, Scott pictures Cassie’s smiling face. He presses the spacebar repeatedly, trying to turn the screen back on, but instead words type across the screen: ACCESS GRANTED. TRANSFERRING LOCATION. Below it, a loading screen takes over the rest of the screen, creeping at a snail’s pace from 1% to 2% and on.

This is it, Scott thinks. Tony Stark is going to save him. They’ll take him out on a stretcher, probably, something softer than this hard-ass chair, and as the Avengers beat up the rest of Charlie’s guys (hopefully with Captain America leading the charge), he’ll get to see Cassie again. To hold her again. To—

The computer lets out an alarming _ mreeeeep _ that slices through the silence of the Room like a hot knife, and Scott’s handcuffed hands scutter, terrified, to the computer keys; make it stop, make it _ stop! _ Jesus, when they hear it, Scott will be _ in for it_, they’d break every bone in his fucking body unless he finds a way to stop the _ noise _—

Off, off, _ off! _Scott spams the mute button—then the power button—and every trick in the fucking book, all while watching the loading climb to 33%, 34%, 35%—

Pounding footsteps down the hall, all coming towards him. A guttural roar. “_Lang!_”

No, no, no—Scott has to let it load completely, or Tony will never be able to find them. With his bound hands, he yanks the computer away from the wall—what is he _ thinking _? He can’t hide the screeching computer from them. 

But he can try to delay them as late as possible. 40%. 41%. 42%. He slaps the laptop closed and starts to count again in his head. 43%. 44%. 

He stuffs the computer under his chair, then struggles to stand on his wounded legs—

—pain spears through his legs, crackling like lightning in his smashed kneecaps, splitting through every nerve, every fiber—

—but Scott slumps back into the chair, panting. Nope. He _ can’t_. He can’t get on one leg, let alone stand and fight back. 49%. 50%. 51%. 

He’s never been much for combat, anyway. He’s more of a _ talk now, fight later _ kind of guy—that’s what hackers are, anyway. Just computer geeks with a backbone and a big mouth. 

But now, he summons the dregs of courage settled at the bottom of his heart, sets his cuffed wrists on top of the computer, and puts on his ‘I’m-innocent’ face. 56%. 57%. 58%.

When Charlie slams the door open, his face straight out of the psychopathy chapter of a psychology textbook, Scott grins. “Hey, fellas! Wondering how long it would take you—this computer keeps acting up! You should’ve given me better tech, I’m telling you, in this world, it’s Microsoft or die! You know, I met Bill Gates once, he’s nice, a little weird, but once you get to know him—”

“I leave you alone for five fucking _ seconds _—” A fist, then a blinding pain cracking through his chest. The force of the blow sends Scott tumbling out of the chair and sprawled across the cold floor. 72%. 73%. 74%.

“Hm, linoleum,” croaks Scott, running his hands across the floor. A little blood dribbles out of his mouth, and he glances—fuck, they _ found _it—as Charlie’s gang of followers open up the laptop. “Nice touch, you got a background in interior design? My bathroom’s got linoleum, but it’s blue, not gray—”

A boot slams into his already-broken knee, and Scott _ screams_, a wave of agony crushing him and ripping his breath away. He’s left gasping face-down on the linoleum—fucking _ linoleum _ —choking on his pain, but instead of begging for mercy he just keeps _ talking _ — “I was gonna...paint it orange, but Hope...said it was fucking ugly...no floor of hers...gonna be orange, but— _ fuck! _”

Another boot hammers into his ribs, and more follow, and Scott’s still talking, rambling until his voice is a dry croak; there’s blood spilling from his legs again— “Don’t touch his hands—_ leave his fucking hands, Mason_!” —but the whole time he’s still counting. 86%. 87%. 88%.

It’s only when a shattered mass of glass and plastic and metal drops in front of his face when Scott realizes his stupid plan to get out of here was never going to work. “A fucking tracker, Lang? Did you honestly think…”

Another boot. Another fist. So many blows that Scott loses count. And eventually, after pain that threatens to tear him apart at the seams, the bliss of unconsciousness… 

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 12:02 PM**

Tony nearly jumps out of his own skin when the phone rings again. The tracker he set on whatever infected his computer systems faltered at 79% before blinking out completely. 

Now, he’s staring at the computer screen, typing faster than his heart can race—he’s already setting up another location tracking virus, trying to—

Another _ briiiiing _ from the phone beside him. What. The. Actual. Fuck. He ignores the call; he doesn’t care who it is. Nothing else matters right now except getting Peter the fuck out of there. He tries not to think about it ( _ a garbled moan of pain—a horrific _ crunch _ as metal meets bone _), and hacks as quickly as he can. He knows it’s Charlie, calling with another demand, he won’t pick up. He just has to finish transferring...this one...virus… He glances up at the TV, instinctively, just to make sure Peter’s still—

—and _ fuck, _ Charlie’s beating Peter bloody, his fist pulls back to reveal the kid’s swollen face—bright red stains his front, splitting across his face, flooding from his nose—but he’s _ awake _ now, and that’s what makes it so fucking horrible—his kid is screaming _ please, no, stop, _and Tony doesn’t have to hear the words to know what he’s saying—

—Tony doesn’t realize he’s moved across the room to the TV until he feels his fists against the heat of the screen, banging uselessly against the glass— “_Peter _ —no, fucking—no, stop, _ please _ —” He’s spamming the redial button on his phone—he knows the number, they won’t pick up— “_Pick up the phone, you FUCKING COWARDS!” _ He’s gone from disbelief to helplessness to fury, and now all he can feel is explosive, red-hot _ fear _ bursting through his veins. “No, no, Peter—Peter—you motherfucking _ sadist_, leave him alone—hey! No, _ fuck, _ you have me, stop, _ stop_, _ STOP!! _”

Charlie doesn’t pick up the phone until five minutes later, when Peter is whimpering and coughing and bleeding everywhere. He’s fucking _ shaking_. 

Those are the longest fucking five minutes of Tony’s entire life. He’s on his knees now, palm pressed against the TV screen, wishing he was there to hold his kid, to protect him, to comfort him...

Finally, Charlie speaks. “Rule number five, Stark. What was it?”

“I’m _ sorry_,” gasps Tony, and his grip on the phone is airtight. “I—I won’t do it again, please—”

“Did you think I was just fucking around, Stark?” His voice slides down, a broken whistle. “You’re not hacking your way out of this one—not without watching me blow Peter Parker’s brains out.” The man on the other side of Peter pulls out his weapon, a large pistol, and slams the muzzle against Peter’s bloody head; through the phone, Tony hears him cry out through his swollen mouth in shock. A “no” dies in Tony’s throat. 

His left arm’s tingling, going strangely numb, and everything starts to spin. This isn’t like combat or a roomful of reporters—this is like seeing Rhodey drop from the sky like a stone—this is like watching Pepper fall into the flames. This is fear, defenseless, its matted wings clipped by the image of Peter strapped to a chair on the screen before him.

Tony can’t breathe.

On the other end of the line, Charlie growls, “I told you not to try any of this hero business, Stark.”

The man beside Peter slams his fist against Peter’s swollen wrist. Peter gurgles in pain.

Panic spears through him; Tony gasps out, “_Please_.”  
  


Charlie ignores him. “Get started on my weapon, Stark. Or it’s Parker’s head on a platter.”

Through the phone, Peter makes this sound, so weak and pained that Tony’s legs buckle beneath him.

Charlie’s voice. “You’re my bitch now, Stark.” A chuckle. “Don’t forget it.”

_ Click. _

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 1:03 PM**

“Head of Security at Stark Industries,” Happy grumbles, “and you still want me to go bring him his meals?”

Pepper’s voice warns, “Happy.”

“I’m not a delivery boy, Pepper. I’ve got better things to do. FRIDAY’s shutdown’s leaving us pretty vulnerable, you know. We’ve gotta do everything manually now, gotta keep this place running—”

Pepper pushes the box into his hands. “Get someone else to take over.”

“Pepper—”

“You’re the only one he’ll listen to,” she tells him, firm. “If it was me, he’d pretend to be okay to give me peace of mind.”

Happy grunts, “Fine. But next time, I’m making one of the interns do it.”

* * *

It smells _ delicious. _

It’s a fifteen-minute walk to Tony’s lab, and by the time he’s halfway there, Happy can’t help himself. He cracks open the box.

Good _ God. _

It’s a brunch fit for a king (or Tony Stark, that is) of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and fruit. Pepper knows Tony always gets freaked when his AIs cut out. 

Happy is a quick learner. The first thing he learned in this job was don’t stop Tony Stark from working. Even Pepper doesn’t generally stop him. She complains a little, here and there, and does her best to keep him healthy while he spirals through his work.

Happy plucks a piece of bacon from the box and scarfs it down. Tony won’t know the difference. 

He closes the box.

_ Maybe one more… _ He opens it again.

By the time he’s knocking on the door to Tony’s lab, the box is free of its bacon, as well as two pieces of cantaloupe. “Tony!” He bangs his large fist against the door again. “Tony, open up!”

Silence.

Happy rolls his eyes. He’s probably blasting AC/DC right now, so loud that he can’t hear his knocking. “Tony! I brought your lunch!” 

It takes a few minutes, but finally Tony responds, talking through the audio system installed in the door. “I’m fine,” snaps the voice on the other end. He sounds strained, like a balloon one breath away from bursting.

It’s what Happy expected, honestly. _ We’ll be fine, _ assured Happy once, when JARVIS died on a Saturday afternoon. _ I’m sure he’ll be up and running in no ti— _

_ Fine? _ gasped Tony, in a voice that sounded far too emotionally attached to a bundle of computer code. _ Do I look fucking fine to you? I’m not safe! I’m not—I can’t—we’re not safe! _

When JARVIS’ voice finally responded in the main building two days later, Happy and Pepper went to check on him and found him working like a maniac, wearing his clothing from two days prior, sleeves stained with coffee, eyes bloodshot.

Tony Stark is not easily shaken. But attacking his sense of security is like attacking his family.

“I don’t believe you!” Happy shouts back at him. “Remember last time?”

A growl of irritation through the speaker.

“Just take the food, Tony.”

He can hear shuffling on the other side of the door. A few beats pass, and then— “Get out of here, Happy. Now.”

FRIDAY’s shutdown must be causing him true panic, because Happy can hear it in his voice. Tony’s _ scared_. “You’ve gotta eat sometime—”

“Get out! Now! Get out, get out! I’m working! Get the fuck out of here!”

Happy frowns.

If Tony Stark won’t eat, he can’t force the food down the man’s throat. Tony can make his own decisions. He’s got a fridge in there, anyway. He could survive a whole month in there if he wanted to, although it’d be on meals of protein bars and frozen pizza.

Happy sighs and walks away, opening up the box.

Those pancakes look goddamn _ delicious. _

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 2:25 PM**

Julia enters the interrogation room with darkened hope clouding her thoughts. _ Their little girl was abducted yesterday_, her lieutenant told her. _ If you help them find their girl, then you can continue with your drug addict case. _There are three family members inside; she has their names written on the little girl’s case folder. The child, Cassandra Marie Paxton, was taken yesterday from her mother and stepfather, Margaret and James Paxton, after their home was attacked by several armed figures. The biological father, Scott Lang, a prominent figure in her life, has been missing for three days according to his girlfriend, a woman named Hope van Dyne. The local police are already following the trail, but they hadn’t found anything other than half a license plate number, and therefore handed all jurisdiction to Julia and her team of officers. 

Julia clears her throat and pushes the door open with her hip. The mother, Margaret Paxton, rises immediately, sending her chair screeching backwards, and glares viciously at Julia; her arm is wrapped in a thick cast, and there are stitches lining a shaved section of her hairline. The stepfather tugs at her uninjured arm with a calming whisper, but she doesn’t move.

Julia is a little unnerved by the woman’s still ferocity, but it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. Parents who have lost their children… They’re mad with desperation, so blinded by loss that they can barely think, let alone communicate logically to the police officer interrogating them. “You must be the Paxtons,” she announces, pulling up a chair. “I’m Officer Julia Paz, I—”

“They told us we were getting Officer Keene,” snapped the mother, her face hard. 

Julia smiles at the couple, trying not to let her anxiety show through her teeth. “I got remarried, Mrs. Paxton. On some of the old forms, they—”

“Fine,” she snarls; like a lioness, fury glints off her teeth. “I don’t care what your name is. Just tell me how you’re gonna find my daughter.”

* * *

They’re knee-deep in dead ends and loose strings and still they’ve got nothing. “I need you to think, Ms. Van Dyne. Does your boyfriend have any enemies? Anyone he was fighting with? A stalker, maybe?” 

Van Dyne bites her lip. “Not really. I mean, he was in prison for a little while, but there was no one—no, no, he doesn’t really make enemies.” 

“He was in prison?”

“Yeah, but…” Scratching her head, she continues. “Look, the people we’ve had, um, _ arguments_, with… They’re resolved. But Scott did use to, um, steal things. If there’s anyone he’d have a problem with, I guess that’d be a start.”

Julia stops typing. “Anyone else you all can think of? Anyone who could know something about this?”

Maggie and Jim rattle off a few family members and a couple of Scott’s friends, and Julia writes them all down.

After gaining as much information as she can, she dismisses the family. As she leaves, the mother grabs her by the arm. “Mrs. Paxton—” Julia starts. 

“Do you have kids, Officer?” asks the woman, abrupt. Her haunted eyes watch her face.

“Two,” she admits. 

Maggie tilts her chin up and Julia sees herself mirrored in this mother’s eyes. “All I have is Cassie—she’s my whole world, you understand?” Her eyes glaze over as her voice shakes, and her husband tugs at her arm. “_Understand? _”

“I understand, Mrs. Pa—”

“She’s all I _ have_!” Now Maggie sobs into her hands, and her husband steers her towards the door.

When he looks back at Julia, she realizes his face matches his wife’s. He looks...broken, somehow, a cracked window. “Find her,” he begs. “Please.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 3:09 PM**

There’s a small voice in the back of his head, prying at his blender of a brain. _ Mister… Mister… Are you… _

His skin feels like ice, numb to the touch, and his muscles are jelly, and worst of all, there’s pain drumming through his body—a tender knot at the back of his skull, combat bruises peppering his torso, discomfort zigzagging between his ribs, a swollen, throbbing wrist, a sensitive bruise on his face, and a horrible spike of pain rendering his left hand useless. He tries to move, but his battered body won’t allow it, especially not while under the influence of this foreign drug.

The tinny voice beside him grows more frantic, breaking into confused sobs. A _ kid’s _sobs.

Peter forces his eyes open, blinking to clear the haze of pain from his brain. There’s a little girl in front of him with a smear of blood on her cheek; she looks Asian, maybe half-Japanese or half-Korean, with long, dark hair. She’s wearing pink pants speckled with shooting stars, a purple shirt with “Sparkle Like A Unicorn” printed across the front of it in glitter. Over it, she wears a sparkly blue hoodie with a pair of belugas swimming across the back, although there’s blood spotting all the way down her sleeves. She’s got one hand clenched on the hem of her T-shirt while the other pokes his uninjured cheek, and she’s saying something. “...hey, Mister, wake up, wake—whoa!”

Peter pushes himself up with a groan, and she stumbles backward in surprise. She’s _ scared _; not the kind of scared that Ned’s baby sister Daisy shows when her mom scolds her, but the kind of scared that douses your mind in gasoline, the kind where any spark will send flames of panic burning through your veins. The little girl is pale, trembling like a leaf, and watching him with wide, cautious eyes. “H-hey,” he says, trying to move his numb tongue, “I’m Peter. What’s your name?”

“Cassie,” she says carefully. She watches as Peter shifts, propping himself against the wall, his good arm curled around his torso. Finally, he takes in his surroundings; the room’s miniscule, probably not meant for two people. It’s about fifteen feet one way and ten feet the other way. There’s a toilet and a sink crammed in the left corner, furthest from the door, and a ratty bed (with a mattress to match) in the other corner, just a few feet away from the door. Peter’s currently sitting right next to the bed, and he grabs onto the metal railing with his right hand, trying to steady himself. He’d hoped for some metal screws or exposed wires he could use to break them out of here, but so far all he sees are smooth, blank walls, save a lone, fluorescent light in a cage on the ceiling streaming uneven light across the entire room. The door’s similar—dull, even metal, not even a handle on the inside. There’s no window, only a tiny slot for food. 

“Cassie,” Peter repeats, giving her a pained smile. “That’s a” —he winces— “a pretty name.”

Cassie’s gaze flickers down to his hand. “You’re bleeding,” she comments, trying to sound brave, “a lot.”

Peter glances down at his hand. It’s not spraying blood, which is good, and he’s happy to feel the familiar tingle of his super-healing at work, but there’s a terrifying amount of red oozing into a puddle on the ground beside him—no wonder the kid is scared. “Oh,” he says simply. “Don’t worry.” He wills his hands to stick (almost an unconscious thought at this point), and feels a familiar, adhesive substance coat his palm and fingers; he spreads the sticky liquid over the open wound, letting it seep in from both sides, and the flow of blood slows from dangerous to annoying. Then he grabs a section of his T-shirt and (he wishes May could be here to see him tear his favorite shirt, she’d be horrified) tears a section from the bottom, which is, surprisingly, harder than it looks. He winds the makeshift bandage around his palm, knotting it with his teeth. “See?” 

Cassie nods, wary.

Reexamining the bloody spots on Cassie’s jacket, Peter points a shaky finger in her direction. “Did they hurt you, too?” 

The dark-haired girl flinches, pain flashing across her face; regret drips down Peter’s throat. She nods again. “Daddy’s gonna come get me,” she whispers. “He’s gonna save me.”

Peter’s spent enough time with Ned’s sister, Daisy, to know not to correct kids when they think their parents are coming. Besides, he’s not asking for a meltdown—he just wants to make sure this little girl isn’t going to bleed out any time soon. She’s about as thin as a paper clip, so Peter’s guessing any loss of blood will leave her dizzy and upset. “Okay, okay,” he agrees. “How about you come over here? I’ll fix up your cuts like I did mine. You can tell me about your dad.”

She shuffles over slowly. “Are you a doctor?”

Peter smiles. “No, kiddo. Just a guy with magic hands. I’m like, uh, Harry Houdini!” He waves his right hand for dramatic effect. 

“Are you gonna hurt me?” she says, even quieter. 

Awful, sinking revulsion crawls into his stomach and squirms. He knew it before, but now it’s _ real. _ Someone _ hurt _ this little kid—she’s probably six or seven years old, barely bigger than Daisy, and someone cut open her arms and left her to bleed. “No,” he says firmly, meeting her eyes. “I’m just gonna stop the bleeding.” He tries to hold back his tears, but he’s always been an easy crier. Ned knows—Peter sobbed through _ The Fault In Our Stars _ and _ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 _ and any other movie where someone died; whenever May cries, he always finds himself crying, too. It isn’t a great move for a high school student still trying to make his way through a thousand and one social bubbles, but nonetheless, his vision still blurs when Cassie approaches him, arm held out with the rest of her body curled up like a tight rubber band, her eyes squeezed shut. “It’s okay…” he says. “Cassie. Look at me.” She’s still tense, like he’s about to slap her or punch her or cut her arm open again. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m one of the good guys, okay?”

Cassie presses her back against the wall beside him. She is so, so confused–it’s written all over her face. “They hurt you,” she whispers.

Peter smiles emptily. “Yeah.”

She frowns. “Did you do something bad?”

Peter is still, and he takes a moment to just feel, _ feel _the level of pain he is in. “No,” he tells her. “I didn’t.” Pain flares in his arm.

“Then why did they hurt you?” She backs away a little, sliding a few inches away from him. “Are you bad?”

“No.” Peter wants to go to sleep and never wake up, but instead he forces his eyes to the little girl’s. Spiderman would comfort her, tell that they’ll defeat the bad guys and get out of here, but instead he lets out a strained sigh. “I don’t know why, they just…” He can barely remember the torture: hints of familiar voices, aching pain, cold metal, _ I’ll do it–I’ll do it, I’ll make your fucking weapon— _He shivers. “Some people just like hurting other people.”

Cassie is quiet for a moment. The _ drip, drip, drip _ of the faucet echoes rhythmically from the other side of the room. “Do you?”

“Nah,” says Peter, trying to sound nonchalant as pain suddenly erupts in his arm. “I told you, I’m one of the good guys, kid.”

“Promise?”

A tiny, bloodspattered hand appears before him, clear in the pain clouding Peter’s brain, one pinky up.

Peter hooks his pinky finger in hers. “Pinky promise,” he swears.

For the first time since he met her, little Cassie smiles.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 5:14 PM**

Only one of the little girls’ neighbors actually saw anything. She goes with her partner, Officer Jimmy Woo; he’s a bit too friendly for a police officer, but he’s growing on her. He somehow starts a whole conversation with the witness about dog breeds, and she swears she wants to knock him onto the floor. “Did you see any distinguishing features of the culprits?” she asks, cutting Woo off as he goes into a rant about labradoodles. “Any tattoos, any facial hair, anything?”

The woman shakes her head. “Only the woman—the one with red hair. That’s all I remember.”

“Any names? Can you remember anything that they said?”

Her face scrunches in thought. “No… I’m sorry, it all happened so _ fast _… Just yelling, that’s it.”

Julia shakes her down for as much information as she can, but once they’re done, she knows they’ve hit a wall. It’s been almost 36 hours since Cassie Paxton was abducted, and all they have is three letters of a license plate, a hair color, and a vehicle type. It’s not nearly enough. But her sergeant didn’t just give her the case because they were understaffed; he did it, she knows, because Julia is damn good at her job.

“Check the ex-husband’s burglary victims,” she orders Woo, remembering what Cassie’s family said. Right now, they had nothing to help them find this little girl, and with every minute that passed, the chances of finding her alive grew slimmer. “Let’s find ourselves a lead.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 6:51 PM**

It’s time.

They’ve set seven o’clock as the official time to call Stark, every day, so now it’s time to take that Spidey-kid out of his cell.

He sends his two biggest guys to take him, and he stands outside and watches as they do it.

The girl starts screaming as soon as they open the door. And the boy, still heavily drugged with the shit they gave him, jumps to his feet, swaying dangerously, and falls back down.

His men, Matt and Nick, enter the room; the girl’s screams collapse into pitiful sobs. “Hey—hold on, fellas,” starts Parker, scooting back against the bed, holding his broken wrist to his chest. “Ask me on a date first—”

Nick grabs his ankle and pulls him, hard, across the cement floor, and when the kid’s head meets concrete he hisses in pain, but he twists his leg from Nick’s grip and thrashes wildly. 

This is taking _ too _ long. “Get the fucking kid!” he growls.

Matt gets a few good hits in; the kid’s too drugged to truly fight back, But clearly the drugs didn’t touch his brain, because he slaps both hands down on the floor and tenses up. 

Nick yanks hard at the kid’s legs. He doesn’t budge. 

“The _ hell_?” Matt growls. 

Nick pulls again, harder. Nothing.

The Spider-kid stuck his fucking hands to the floor.

Charlie can feel rage seep into his brain, and all at once his vision goes red. “Get off the fucking floor, Parker!”

Parker doesn’t move. If anything, he clings harder to the concrete. 

Charlie steps into that fucking tiny room and sticks his gun into the back of Parker’s neck. “Get off,” he hisses, “the floor. Or Stark’s gonna know just what spider brains look like.”

“You won’t,” the teen answers slowly, “because you need me.”

Charlie wants to smash this kid into the fucking ground and rips his face off with his teeth. Instead, he grabs his head and slams his face into the ground. “Get up!”

Lang’s girl screams from the corner, and Peter startles.

Charlie grins. He’s a fucking _ genius. _

He grabs Peter by the hair. “Get up,” he repeats, “or I’ll make that little girl bleed again.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 7:06 PM**

Peter’s furious with himself, tugging at his bound arms in a frenzy. He forgot about little Cassie for two fucking seconds, and then they got the upper hand. If he’d remembered that it wasn’t only _ him_, then they could’ve been both free by now.

The drug’s still coursing through him, dizzyingly cold, but its effect has waned. Why can’t he break out of these restraints? Rope and steel can’t hold him, so what is—

_ Oh. _

Vibranium. 

It smells like vibranium. He couldn’t break out of this chair even if he was at his full strength.

Peter’s heart rate picks up. Who are these people? This chair is made of vibranium, and the cell he was in reeks of it, too. The people he faces are usually desperate, like muggers and addicts and thieves, or structured, like villains and psychopaths. These people are a strange mix of the two. 

He winces. The pain comes and goes in waves, aching from head to toe. “...please, please don’t make me do this—he’s just a kid—he’s not—”

A _ slap. _“You’ve done it before, Lang. Come on. Call him.”

Peter’s not stupid. Once the guy in charge—Charlie—started talking, he figured it out pretty quickly. They’d kidnapped him to blackmail Mr. Stark into making a weapon for them. 

He laughs, as much as one can with a swollen, bloody face. Didn’t they know who Mr. Stark was? Mr. Stark had been blackmailed more times than Peter could count, and they’d never worked—

“Something funny, freak?” the man, Charlie, asked.

Peter shrugged; pain spiked down his arm, and he immediately regretted it. “Eh, nothing. Just… Your socks are untied.”

Charlie grabs his poorly bandaged arm and squeezes, hard, digging his thumb into the wound. Peter chokes on the sudden pain. “I get enough talk out of Lang—I don’t need any from you.”

Peter’s about to make a sharp comeback when he spots the man in the corner, huddled behind a computer, blood staining his chin and the front of his shirt. He’s typing rapidly, looking up every once in a while to glance at Charlie.

_ Fuck. _

He looks like he’s been ripped apart at the seams. His face is blackened with bruises, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth thick and swollen. And his legs… Nausea writhes in Peter’s gut. 

Peter shuts up.

“Good boy,” sneers Charlie, and then he kicks at the other man’s chair. The man jerks back, his handcuffs jingling. “Lang?”

“Yeah—um, yes. It’s ringing.”

Peter recognizes that voice. It’s… Shit, why couldn’t he remember?

Charlie shifts his feet beside him. “Lights, camera, action,” he says, in a loud whisper. “Mason, you have my tools?”

“Yeah.” Someone pushes a metal cart forward, and its wheels screech over the ground.

Peter hears that oh-so-familiar sound of a phone picking up, and his stomach drops. “I’m not done yet,” says the voice on the other line. “I need more time…”

It’s Mr. Stark’s voice.

He sounds _ freaked. _

“Mr. Stark?” calls out Peter. “Can you hear me?”

Charlie slaps his hand over his mouth, a warning.

Peter stops moving.

Mr. Stark’s voice goes from weary to intensely concerned. He’s never heard him like this, not even when Peter woke up in the medbay after taking a bullet to the chest. “Pete? You okay, kid? I’m gonna fix this, I fucking swear, don’t—”

“Now’s not the time for chit-chat,” snaps Charlie. “You got my weapon, Stark?”

Mr. Stark’s grainy voice on the other end. “No, I haven’t got the—I’ve barely got blueprints! I don’t just shit technology, you fucker, that’s not how it—_ don’t fucking touch him! _”

  
Beside him, Charlie’s shaking in frustration, holding something cold and metallic against his neck; Peter can practically hear his teeth grinding together. “What’s rule number three, Stark?” growls the man.

As Charlie removes his hand from Peter’s mouth, Mr. Stark continues, “I don’t know, I don’t know—”

A click, and something hisses beside his ear. Something _ hot. _Peter suddenly grows wildly tense. “Don’t worry, Mr. Stark,” he babbles, cutting off Charlie as he talks again. His body trembles. “I’ll be fine—everything’s gonna be okay—I’ll get out of here, you know I can do it, I’ll get everyone out of here, I can do it, don’t worry, you don’t have to—”

The man on the other side grabs his head and pins it to one side of the chair; Peter lets out a cry of surprise and then keeps on talking, because if he doesn’t stop talking then he’s gonna think about how loud Mr. Stark is screaming into the phone and how much sweat is coming down the side of his face and how much it’s gonna fucking _ hurt— _“I’ve got it, don’t worry about me, I’m okay, don’t worry—”

The heat singes his ear and the side of his head lights up in splitting agony.

Somewhere beneath the mountains and valleys of Peter’s own screams, he can hear Mr. Stark’s sobs.

When the pain finally wanes and his sticky hands unclench from the vibranium armrests, he realizes something.

He’s never heard Mr. Stark cry before.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 10:29 PM**

Charlie’s coming down from a high when the phone finally rings.

He picks up after the second ring. “Yeah?”

A low voice. “Did you get them?”

“Yep.”

“All three?”

“Yeah, yeah, I told you we got ‘em. Antman, the girl, and Spiderman. We already called Stark—he’s pissing himself silly trying to make my weapon.”

“_Our _weapon, Keene. Don’t forget who’s funding your little project here.”

“Yeah, sorry, boss.”

“I need you to keep this under control. If” —the man’s voice drops to a threatening whisper— “Stark breathes one word to Potts or anyone else, then the whole operation falls apart. We can’t let that happen. If he talks to anyone…”

“I’ll rip that kid apart.”

A pleased hum. “Right. I’ll check in again in a couple of days. And Keene?”

“Yeah, Secretary Ross?”

“Don’t fuck this up.”


	3. watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _To Tony, it’s only been minutes. Time’s blurry now, jumping between seeing Peter’s bloodstained face and his plans for the HYDRA weapon. He can’t tell how much time has passed; he feels like he’s back in that fucking cave, where every second was a year and another pained heartbeat through a car battery._
> 
> _Pepper’s mad this time. She yells at him through the door, telling him he’s being childish and immature and he wishes he could scream back._
> 
> _But he can’t. Not with Peter’s life on the line._

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 7:58 PM**

Tony’s on the floor when Peter’s blood-curdling screams finally stop.

“Stark,” states the voice on the other line.

Tony fumbles for the phone and grips it with white-knuckled hands. “Listen to me,” he says through gritted teeth. On screen, sweat pours down Peter’s face; he’s barely conscious now, eyelids fluttering, his left ear a raw mess of burned flesh. Sickening dread fills Tony to the brim. “I’m working as fast as I can. Just… Don’t hurt him. I’ll do it without you tortu—”

The bearded man onscreen raises a hand to stop him from talking. “I know the way this shit works, Stark. I’m not stupid. Parker’s your motivation. The faster you get my weapon done, the less shit that freak has to go through.”

“Please, you don’t have to—”

Charlie shoves the blowtorch closer to Peter’s head and his kid writhes in his metal restraints, his breathing quickening as he tries to get away from the threatening heat. “You’re so used to getting what you want, aren’t you?”

Tony doesn’t say a word; his whole body’s frozen, hoping that if he does nothing then Charlie won’t hurt Peter. 

Through the TV, Charlie points the blowtorch at Tony, waving at the camera. “Well, this time,  _ I’m  _ in charge. None of your gadgets or your fancy suits or your money will save you now.” He scoffs. “You can’t even be trusted to stop fighting back when Spider-baby’s life is on the line.”

Tony gulps.

“Starting now, my guys will watch your every fucking move, through all those cameras and microphones and computers that you thought kept you so safe. And we’re shutting down the Internet, too. If you call anyone, we’ll know. If you text anyone, we’ll know. If you touch one of your precious suits, we’ll know. And any move you make” —the flame grazes Peter’s cheek— “means this kid hurts.”

It hits Tony like a freight train.

Whoever hacked FRIDAY knew what they were doing—they can easily view any video footage, any audio, any technological move that Tony could possibly make. That’s how they saw his virus coming. The hacker’s at Tony’s level.

Which means Tony is completely, utterly fucked.

“If I hear an Avenger knocking at my door,” threatens Charlie, “then I’ll slit his throat, understand? If you slip through the cracks with your Stark tech shit and try to save him, he’ll be dead before you can say ‘Iron Man.’”

Tony can’t fix this. For the first time in a long time, he’s completely helpless.

He feels like he’s back in Afghanistan, pain zinging through his chest, thirst raking his tongue, fear flooding his blood. He has no other option than to help them.

“Here’s how it’s gonna work, Stark,” continues the man, as the others undo Peter’s restraints. “You’re gonna give us a list” —Peter slumps forward onto two men, fighting weakly as they drag him away— “of all the shit you need to build my gun. One of my crew will come by once a week to give you supplies. You’re gonna make it, and you’re gonna send it back with my guy. If it works like the HYDRA shit used to, I’ll let Parker go. If it doesn’t…” He shrugs. “You remember what I said. Every day, your spider bleeds, understand?”

This stoner’s got Tony Stark backed into a corner.

“Understand me, Stark?”

He nods. The TV displays only an empty room now, humming lightly. 

“This is my time,” rambles Charlie, and he slings an arm around the red-haired woman’s waist, “to do something that matters. To change the world for the better. This is what my life is for—to make the world a better place, and you’re not gonna fuck it up, Stark. You should be thanking me.”

Tony bites his tongue, and the line cuts out.

Scared is an understatement. Tony is  _ horrified _ .

He can’t tell anyone what’s going on, can’t leave the lab, can’t do anything but work his ass off.

His computer screen says it’s 8:12 PM. Twenty-eight minutes until Pepper comes back home.

She’s gonna  _ know. _

As soon as she sees his face, she’ll know something is wrong; now, they know each other better than anyone else on the planet. He has to do something; if Pepper comes and finds him like this, they’ll murder Peter.

Tony presses his hands against his head and pushes hard, like ideas will come springing from his brain. 

If anything more happens to Peter...

He has to do something.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 8:40 PM**

Pepper is exhausted. As Stark Industries’ CEO, she’s got a lot of weight on her shoulders, and after a long couple days in San Francisco, she’s ready to come home. 

As she drives into the facility, she passes Tony’s lab. Something’s off about it; from far away, it looks strange, like a different color. As she nears the lab, she realizes with a sharp intake of breath what it is. Tony’s lab is on  _ lockdown _ .

_ It’s only for emergencies _ , Tony told her when he created it.  _ I promise. _

_ What kind of emergency _ , she inquired,  _ would warrant you locking yourself inside of your lab like a prison? _

Tony blew air through his teeth.  _ I’m making one for every building here, babe. It’s just… Just in case. If something happens to me, I can’t let it happen to you, too.  _

_ Tony…  _

_ Just trust me,  _ he said.  _ We’ll probably never have to use it. It’s just in case.  _

Pepper pulls to a stop a few feet away from the lab and slams the car door as she gets out. “Tony!” Lockdown is for emergencies  _ only _ , not for whatever this is. “Tony, come out of there!” She bangs on the door with her fist. There are vibranium-lined sheets locked over every window, vibranium bolts securing every door. No one can get in or out, not even her. “Tony!” She hits the doorbell, too, over and over again. “Tony, come on!”

No response.

She yanks on the door handle. Locked, as expected. She did not want to come home to this; she wanted to crawl onto the couch with her fiancé and watch Netflix. “Tony!” She slaps her palm onto the metal sheeting. Still, no response. She keeps yelling his name and waiting for a response, but he doesn’t say a word.

She takes a breath. He clearly doesn’t want to answer her, so she tries another method. “Honey, I get that you’re scared after what happened to FRIDAY, but we’ll fix her, I’m sure. We’re not defenseless, Tony.” 

Still, he says nothing.

She takes another breath, holds out, and lets it out. Tony’s not an incredibly complicated person, so it’s not difficult to figure this one out. He must be scared _ .  _ If she gives him some time, perhaps this will all blow over. “We’ll talk later, okay? Just…” She touches the door handle. “Don’t sleep there, Tony. And eat something, would you? Happy told me you wouldn’t eat what you gave him, so… You can’t survive off of protein bars and coffee.” He used to do that when he worked through the night, and he hadn’t done it in months. But here they were, back where they started. “It’s not healthy.”

Nothing.

Pepper sighs. She’ll talk to him again later, after she kicks off her tight heels. 

Everything will be better soon.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 9:13 PM**

Charlie feels like he’s flying above the clouds. 

One of his crew, a young junkie named Ava, comes up to him while he’s so far gone he can barely feel his feet. “I was reviewing the footage from earlier today, and he… He talked to someone.

The words sound like they’re coming through water. “He what?”

“He talked to some guy through the door—for less than a minute, really, while I was up to piss and Scott was watching—and the guy walked away.”

Charlie’s eye twitches. “What did they talk about?”

“Nothing important.” She wrings her hands. “He was too scared to say anything to him, just told him to leave.”

Charlie clenches his jaw. 

“Look, I’m just letting you know in case he tries anything but—Jesus, Charlie, give them a break.”

“A  _ break _ ?” he scoffs. “They’re stabbing me in the fucking  _ back,  _ Ava! I’m gonna  _ save the world  _ and they think they can sabotage me? They can’t get away with this without  _ ANY FUCKING PUNISHMENT!”  _ Even after Charlie warned Stark not to fuck with his rules, after he  _ told  _ him over and over again not to do it… And Lang, too. He tried to hide it from them. He should be grateful, honestly, that they hadn’t killed him yet. Was smashing his legs not good enough? Slicing open that kid? How much pain did Lang want for his kid? And Stark for his?

_ Why couldn’t they all see he was going to SAVE THE FUCKING PLANET? _

He storms out of the room, and Ava follows, stammering, “Charlie—Charlie, they’ve been through enough, please—”

He spins around and slaps her; the girl falls. His hand stings. “Renee!” he calls out, and his wife pokes her head out of one of the doorways. “Get the kids. We’ve got another phone call to make.”

He punishes Lang first. The man screams himself raw as Mason breaks the girl’s fingers one by one. “Cassie!” he screeches, like it’s his last word. “ _ Cassie, CASSIE!” _

Afterward, Renee slings the wailing girl over her shoulder and returns her to the cell. Two more drag in that Spider-kid; the injured boy lands an elbow to one captor’s gut before they lock him into the vibranium restraining chair. Mason picks up the syringe of sedative, filling it with a full dose, but Charlie pushes him back. “No sedative,” he snaps. “Stark gets to know just how much pain he puts this kid in.”

He calls Tony Stark, but he doesn’t even give him a second to explain himself.  _ He’s  _ in control now. The power pumps through his veins like cocaine, rippling over him. “Rule #1, Stark,” he snarls, toying with Mason’s favored hammer. “Don’t talk to anyone.”

Then he swings the hammer back and smashes it into Parker’s right knee.

The boy’s scream lights the room on fire.

Charlie smiles.

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 10:01 PM**

The house feels empty.

Cassie’s room feels like a death trap.

Yet still, Maggie manages to step inside. Jim follows her. What are they supposed to do now? How is she supposed to live without… without… without her little girl? 

Jim puts his hand on her back, and she pushes his hand away. “Jim—” she sobs, unable to describe the pain she feels from the absence of her baby. “How—”

Jim falls against the wall, running one hand over his face. He’s crying, too. “I have to check—I’m gonna find her—I have to—” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve gotta find her, Maggie—I  _ will. _ ”

Maggie doesn’t answer him, just braces herself against the wall outside of Cassie’s bedroom and waits for him to go. Her world is cold, numbness seeping into all of her cracks, and not even Jim can help her. She can still see her little girl, can still feel the rush of overwhelming anguish as those men pointed at her baby, shouting,  _ there’s the kid, grab her _ —

She falls to her knees.

* * *

Maggie doesn’t sleep, and neither does Jim.

Jim stays at the kitchen table, checking every police scanner and every traffic camera, hoping to find something. 

Maggie is in Cassie’s room, sitting on her daughter’s bed, when Jim comes back upstairs. The question ( _ find anything? _ ) lingers between them.

Jim shakes his head and doesn’t say anything.

They sit for a while. There’s nothing to say, really. When Maggie finally breaks the silence, her voice is hoarse from crying. “Scott wouldn’t do this, would he?”

Jim stares at her. She’s a little out of it, watching the window like Cassie will come home any minute. “Take Cassie?”

She nods.

He lingers in the doorway. Maggie’s got both hands on Cassie’s favorite stuffed animal, stroking it absently. “No, he… He’s done some bad, but he’s never hurt anybody, and he loves Cassie more than life. He’d never do anything to hurt her.”

Hesitant, Maggie nods.

“I don’t know what happened—or why—but if they’re together, I know that he’s keeping our Cassie safe.” He blinks back tears. “The police are gonna find them, I know they will.” He swallows. “Cassie’s gonna be okay. I… I’ll keep looking.”

She nods again, mute.

“I’ll find her. I promise.”

* * *

**APRIL 7 — 10:40 PM**

There’s no clock in here.

That’s the first thing he notices—there’s no clock. He doesn’t know what time it is. There aren’t any windows, either, so he can’t tell if it’s nighttime or daytime or how long he’s been out.

Cassie’s sitting in front of the door, wide awake, running the little fingers of her left hand along the edge of it like it’ll open. 

His healing factor hasn’t kicked in as much as he would like. It’s probably because he hasn’t eaten since he arrived—his sky-high metabolism means he should eat four times a day at the bare minimum, and he’s  _ starving.  _ His knee… A wave of nausea rushes over him as he remembers the pain. It’s not like he’s never experienced painful things before—he’s had probably a dozen broken bones from being Spider-man alone—but he was always taken by surprise. It never hurts as much when your body is pumping with terror and your ears are ringing with Tony Stark’s sobs.

But this… This is different. He’s never been  _ tortured  _ before. He doesn’t have his mask, which usually gives him a sense of security; without it, he feels completely vulnerable. Without it, he’s just Peter Parker. When he’s dragged into that  _ room _ , he has to sit there, locked into that cold chair, listening to Tony scream for them not to hurt him, squirming away from their weapon of choice. 

It fucking  _ hurts. _

His knee is on fire, flames tearing up and down his right leg, so much that the pain climbs up into his chest. And the rest of his body still aches, every movement made difficult by half-healed injuries. His broken arm is healed now, thank God, and the puncture in his palm has closed up. His broken nose has healed up, as have some of his bruises, but they’re covered by fresh ones made by his captor’s fists. His clothes are hardened with dried blood, but he doesn’t have enough strength to make it to the sink to wash it out. Besides, it’s freezing in this small cell, and running water over the only clothing he has will only make him colder.

Cassie’s cold, too. She’s shaking like a rag doll, now holding her broken fingers to her chest and crying quietly.

_ This is bad,  _ Peter thinks.  _ Really bad.  _ He’s kept up his hope so far, but it diminishes with every minute that passes. How is he supposed to escape this place? He’s injured beyond belief, Mr. Stark is stuck between a rock and a hard place, no one knows he’s here, and his only allies are a seven-year-old girl and her battered father. His captor— _ Charlie _ , he thinks blearily—is in complete control.

Cassie whimpers again, and Peter turns his attention to her. He can remember hearing them torture her, twisting his head to try to see her, her wild screaming, her cries for her dad, and her wounded father’s subsequent pleads. He sits up, and his head whines in protest, pain splintering over the burns on the left side of his head. Everything is lopsided; he tries to ignore it. “Hey, Cassie…” he says, and little girl jumps, surprised.

She bursts into tears, scampers over to him, and throws her arms around his neck. With his good arm, he hugs her and rubs her back, repeating, “I know, I know…” Because he  _ does  _ know. He knows exactly what it’s like to be in pain when there’s no one there to comfort him. No Karen to tell him he’s not fatally injured, no Ned to make a dumb  _ Harry Potter _ reference, no May to kiss his forehead, no Mr. Stark to smile at him in the medbay and assure him that everything’s gonna be okay. Peter’s throat goes dry.  _ Mr. Stark…  _

_ “Never,” says Mr. Stark, rushing in and hugging him so suddenly that Peter it takes him a second to realize what’s happening, “do that to me ever again. Got it, kid?” Peter mumbles a “yes” into his shoulder. “You gave me a heart attack!” _

_ Peter laughs, then immediately regrets it as the bandaged wound in his gut sends waves of discomfort through him. “Sorry, sir.” _

_ “Don’t tell me you’re sorry!” he responds, backing away now and giving him the stern I’m-Tony-Stark-so-don’t-fuck-with-me look. “Tell my blood pressure sorry! You call me to tell me you’ve been  _ shot  _ and you go unconscious halfway through? Peter!” _

_ He winces. “Uhhh…” _

_ “I’m old! My heart can’t take it!” He clutches at his chest with one hand, mimicking a heart attack. “Good God, Pete! Give a man some warning next time!” _

_ “I’m sorry!” Peter protests lightly. “I thought the only guns he had were the ones he was holding, and I didn’t have time to pat him down, and when I was getting the victims out, I thought my Spidey Sense was telling me someone was injured ‘cause this girl got shot pretty bad—” _

_ “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Mr. Stark grumbles. “Spider-man had to save the day, didn’t he?” _

_ Peter shrugs, grinning now. _

_ The older man groans into his hands. “I really want to be mad at you right now, Pete, but you did stop what could’ve been a mass shooting.” _

_ “Is everyone okay?” _

_ Tony gives him this odd look, half-smiling. “You can’t be serious.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “You got shot three  _ times,  _ Pete! One went right through your left lung! And you’re worried about the other people?” _

_ He shrugs again. “Are they?” _

_ “Yes, Pete, they’re all fine. The two who got shot are in recovery, and they’re gonna be okay.” _

_ “And the shooter?” _

_ Mr. Stark makes that face again, and this time Peter recognizes what it is. Pride. A surge of warmth goes through him. “You can’t be serious.” Peter raises his eyebrows, and Tony caves, rolling his eyes. “He’s fine. Since you webbed him up after you got shot, the police didn’t see him as a threat once they got there and didn’t shoot.” _

_ Peter slumps in relief, almost like the pain in his chest lessened. Everyone’s okay. “Awesome. Awesome.” _

_ Mr. Stark smiles at him. “You are unbelievable, kid.” _

_ He shrugs. “I try, Mr. Stark.” _

_ “ _ Everything’s gonna be okay,” he assures her. “Let’s see if we can fix up your fingers, okay?”

She nods into his neck.

“You wanna give me your hand?”

She scoots back a little and extends her hand to him, a little shaky. It doesn’t look good; blood spots over her hand where the hammer cut her skin open, and each finger has been fractured so much that there’s no bone to even set. 

Peter swallows. She’s still looking at him like he’s a doctor or Mr. Stark or her father, but he doesn’t want her to. There’s nothing he can do to help her. Pain flares through his knee, and spots dance over his vision as he holds back a groan of pain. He can’t let her know how much pain he’s in. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she gives up, so he has to come up with  _ something _ . He takes her hand by the wrist, wills some stickiness into his fingertips and dabs carefully over the bloody spots.  _ Think, Peter, fucking think. What can you do for her? _ He can’t make a splint—he doesn’t have anything sturdy enough for that. How can he protect her fingers? Ned was always telling him about dumb stuff like that because he watched  _ Survivor  _ like he needed it to stay alive. After a lengthy scream or two, Ned would probably tell him to make the best of the situation. Figure out how to keep her hand stable until a medical professional gets there.

Peter racks his brains for medical shit, but it’s not like there was an AP Emergency First Aid class. God, now he wished there was. “Keep it stable,” he mutters to himself, and Cassie sniffles.

“What?” she asks.

Peter tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it must look more like a pained grimace because Cassie closes her eyes. “Just gotta keep it stable, that’s all,” he assures her. “You’ll be okay.”

“Are you gonna chop it?” she says.

Peter startles. “Wh-what?”

She scrunches up her face at her fingers, ready to cry again. “I saw a man with no leg and Mommy said sometimes doctors chop people’s legs off when they get hurt really bad so it doesn’t hurt anymore, and this hurts a  _ lot _ .” Tears well up in her eyes. “Are you?”

Peter smiles, this time for real, and he puts his other hand over her broken hand so she can’t see it. She looks up. “‘Course not. I’d never do that. Pinky swear.” He mock-taps his pinky to her broken one, careful not to touch it. “Can you move them?” He wiggles his own.

She shakes her head and sniffles again. “No. Hurts.”

“Can you move your wrist?”

He rotates his and she copies him. Thank God. Right now he’s not sure if he can save her fingers from permanent damage, and if it was her wrist, too… “That’s good, kiddo.” God, he’s starting to sound like Mr. Stark. He turns her hand over and looks at it again. He doesn’t want her using the muscles there, even by accident, because it would cause her so much pain. The only thing he can think of, honestly…. “Do you think you could make a fist?”

She shakes her head again, clearly more agitated. “No, no…”

“Okay, that’s fine, don’t worry…”

“Please don’t” —a loud sniff— “chop it, I want it, I want it…”

Peter gnaws on his lip. It’s lined with dried blood, so it tastes a little salty, but he can’t remember ever being hit. The drug still swirls around in his head and his gut, making everything nauseatingly blurry, but he focuses on Cassie. She’s the one who matters, and there’s only one thing that he can think to do right now. “I think… We’re gonna do something a little different, Cassie.”

She blinks away tears. “What?”

* * *

She won’t look at him. 

Peter told her that it would hurt a little bit, but he knows she wasn’t at all prepared for the pain, not after all the torture she’d suffered in the past couple days. As quickly as possible, he straightened out her fingers. It was worse, in that moment, because the reason she screamed was  _ him.  _ He’d done it to protect her, to make sure she escaped here with her hand intact and to stop them from messing with her fingers again, but she didn’t see it that way.

She thought he hurt her on purpose. 

He’s wrapping her fingers now with one long strip of cloth he tore off his T-shirt. “By the end of the week,” he jokes, mostly to himself, “we’ll have to go shopping for a new one.”

Cassie yelps as Peter finishes wrapping. He then pushes her arm to her chest, looping the cloth around her neck once and zipping up her hoodie around it. ”We’re not,” she says, “gonna be out in a week, right?”

She’s a smart kid, so Peter thinks about his answer before responding. “I’ve got a plan,” he says finally, “to get us out of here, but I don’t know how long it will take.”

She makes a small  _ hmph  _ and cradles her broken hand. “Is it gonna work?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Daddy would come up with a plan,” she says simply, staring down at the floor. “Something better than yours.”

Mr. Stark would’ve come up with a plan by now, Peter bets. Something epic, with FRIDAY and Rhodey and Captain America, maybe, and soon they’d all be free. 

Right?

“Do you think they have his suit?” Cassie whispers, finally looking up at him.

“His—what?” Peter asks.

“If he has his suit then he can get out, maybe if we—if we—” She scrunches up her face. “We can steal it back! Back from the bad guys! And then he can get small and come get us out! He can! He can!”

Peter blinks. His head is still bursting with pain, but he tries to wrap his mind around what she’s saying. “Get small?” he echoes. “Cassie, that’s—” He blinks again, trying to clear his drug-muddled head. He examines her face, harder this time, and the puzzle pieces drift together. “Is your dad… a superhero, too?”

She nods, but she’s sad now, tears glistening in her eyes. “He’s Ant-Man but he doesn’t have his suit so he can’t save me but maybe they have it and if we went to get it—”

She keeps talking, but Peter’s head is in another place.

Charlie kidnapped  _ two  _ superheroes, not just Peter, and is locking the other away inside of his own lab.  _ Three  _ superheroes in total.

_ That freak...  _ said Charlie, but when he remembers it the words are all slurred into pieces,  _ took...broken arm...truckload...Winter Soldier...sedatives…  _ There’s a red star on their door, too, just like the one on Mr. Barnes’ arm.

_ Spiderman. Iron Man. Ant-Man. Winter Soldier.  _

When he became Spider-man, he thought he’d be facing robbers and rapists and muggers and the occasional drunk asshole, not...this. This isn’t something he can escape easily—the smashed leg, the restraints of the Winter Soldier, the drugs that bleed his mind dry of substantial thought, the torture that strips him to pieces every night… 

He might not be able to Spider-man his way out of this one.

He needs to talk to Mr. Stark.

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 2:36 AM**

Pepper’s back.

Right now she’s complaining that he shouldn’t sleep there, but he can barely hear her. Something’s happening to him, something that seizes his arc reactor and jerks it around inside his chest. He can’t fucking breathe, not when Peter’s out there, being fucking  _ tortured _ —

“Tony, just talk to me! I know you’re there!”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Fine.” Through the audio, he hears some shuffling. “I’m going to bed.”

A pregnant pause, like she wants to say something else. But no words come through the speaker, and he watches her walk away on the video screen next to him.

It hurts so fucking much. Pepper means everything to him.

“I understand,” she says finally, “that you’re scared about what happened to FRIDAY. Just don’t… don’t sleep there, okay? It’s not healthy, honey.” She sighs. “I love you.”

Tony covers his mouth with his hand, crying quietly into his palm.  _ I love you, too. _

* * *

Tony doesn’t sleep. 

He couldn’t possibly sleep.

He works harder than he’s ever worked in his life. The framework of the gun isn’t difficult; he spent years of his life building weapons, after all. But it’s the technology that is stopping him from finishing so soon. The power source for HYDRA’s weaponry, Tony knows, was the Tessaract, a magical power source that will be difficult to replicate with technology. Although Charlie was incredibly high when he said it, he wasn’t wrong. Tony’s arc reactor technology had similar chemical signatures.

He doesn’t have most of the parts he needs to create the weapon; what is he supposed to do without it? The framework is plausible, most likely, but without the other parts and the reactor energy combined, he doesn’t know how it will work. 

He works frantically, chugging coffee like it’s water, working until his back aches and his hands shake and his computer screen blurs in front of him. He has to save Peter. He has to.

He blinks. There’s an indicator light at the corner of the screen: DOORBELL ACTIVATED. Who would be knocking at this time of night?

Another indicator: DOORBELL ACTIVATED.

It’s Pepper, he knows, because she’s the only one who visits him this late. But how can she be here so soon? He glances at the time. 

It’s 8:04 AM. Fuck.

It feels like no time has passed at all since Pepper last visited him. But she’s here now, again. When he approaches the door, a headache pricking through the back of his head, he can hear her knocking on the door. 

She’s hurt, he can tell. “Tony, really? I—” A frustrated sigh. “This is immature and—and—I thought we’d gotten past this, you can’t—you can’t just  _ run _ every time it gets scary, Tony! It’ll be okay, we’ll figure this out, but you have to come out of there.”

“I can’t,” he whispers, without even touching the audio button. She can’t hear what he says unless he presses it, anyway. “I’m sorry, Pep. It’s gonna be a while, I think.”

“I just want you to be safe and healthy, Tony…” she continues. “But I’m going to a meeting now, and when I get back, I hope you’ve come out of there.”

Watching her walk away on the screen in front of him, Tony puts his hand against his chest and presses like he’s doing CPR on himself. This all feels like some kind of sick dream—he wants to wake up, right fucking  _ now _ , but when he pinches at the skin of his arm, nothing happens.

He’s fucking  _ stuck. _

He stands up on wobbly legs and heads back to the computer. He has work to do. 

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 9:57 AM**

The  _ shiiink _ of the opening food slot startles both Cassie and Peter awake. 

Sitting up from her spot on the bed, Cassie lights up like a Christmas tree. “Daddy!” 

Beside her, Peter jerks awake, throwing his arm out towards the sound.  _ A bad thing _ , thinks Cassie sharply, watching him scan the room and then hone in on the open slot.  _ He thinks it’s a bad thing. _

Instead of Daddy or a bearded man’s fist, two half-crushed Happy Meals squeeze through the opening. Peter slides towards the opening, shoving the boxes out of the way before croaking “Hey!” and sticking his hand out—

Another  _ shiink,  _ and the slot is shut again. 

Peter’s hand hits metal instead of open space, and he huffs in frustration. “No funny business,” warns the voice on the other side. “I’m just giving you breakfast.”

“I like to take my vitamins before my breakfast,” says Peter, and Cassie inches towards those red-and-yellow boxes. “Got any medicine?”

A shout from down the hall. The voice says nothing.

“She’s only seven,” Peter says. His voice is higher now. “Her fingers are broken. Please, just some pain meds, or something.”

“No,” says the voice. It’s a girl voice, Cassie determines. “This is all you get.”

“I’ll trade,” assures Peter. “My food for medicine—she’s only  _ seven. _ ”

A thick silence. “She’ll live,” declares the voice finally, and a set of footsteps scurry away.

“No!” cries Peter, and he slams his hand against the door before crumpling in pain. 

Cassie is now struggling to unwrap a burger with one hand, and she grumbles in frustration. Her broken hand is still zipped into her hoodie, but her other hand still hovers by it, like the closer it is the less it will hurt. 

Two hands pry the burger from her hands, unwrap it, and hand it back to her. Peter looks at her with a weird frown-smile. “How much does it hurt? One to ten.”

“Six,” she answers quickly, looking down at her hand through the cloth. Last time with the red-haired lady hurt a lot more. That was a ten for sure.

He winces. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

She’s still mad about last night, and she frowns. “You promised.”   
  


“Cassie, I didn’t mean—look, I’m sorry.”

She wrinkles her nose. “It doesn’t hurt like last time,” she says. “It’s...better.” 

Peter smiles. “That’s good, Cassie.”

She’s glad she has Peter here to tell her everything’s gonna be okay. At least she’s not alone. Being alone… It’s something that’s hard to understand. It would be like timeout, but forever. She takes a bite of her burger and grimaces. It’s  _ gross _ . “I hate mustard,” she announces, glaring at the deformed sandwich. “Mommy always lets me take it off.” She holds out the burger to him. “Can you ask for another one?”

Peter stares at her, and the expression on her face bothers her so much that she repeats her question. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says, and his voice sounds like the broken mug Jim once dropped on their kitchen floor. “That’s all we’re gonna get, I think.”

She scowls. “But it’s  _ gross,  _ and—and—and I’m hungry!”

“I know,” he says, and he opens the second Happy Meal Box. He’s hurt, Cassie knows, because every time he moves his face tightens up. “But you’ve gotta eat it. That’s all they’re giving us.”

“I don’t  _ want  _ it!” Frustrated tears bubble up in her eyes, and her lower lip trembles. “I  _ hate  _ mustard! I  _ hate  _ it!”

Peter’s eyes whip over to the door. “Cassie,” he says, like he’s her Mommy and she’s in trouble. “Just keep it down, okay? Gimme the burger, I’ll try to get it off—”

“I don’t  _ want  _ it!” Her voice whirlwinds into a screech. “I want another one, I want a—”

“Calm down, Cassie, just calm—”

“I don’t want it, I hate mustard, I won’t eat it—”

Down the hall, a door slams. 

Peter’s eyes go wild a second later, and he shuffles towards her in this frantic half-crawl, half-limp. “Get under the bed.”

“But—”

“Under the bed! Now!”

She scrambles under the bed as fast as she can. There’s just enough space for Peter to squeeze under, too, and he grips the railing at the top and presses his feet to the other at the bottom, letting out a pained sound as he does. His arms shake and his eyes squeeze shut, and Cassie crowds herself as far away from him as possible.

Boots storm into the room, slapping against the concrete, and she slaps her hands over her ears. “Is it too much to ask,” snaps a male voice, “for a little peace and  _ quiet _ ?” The door slams against the wall, and the loud noise makes her yelp in surprise. Peter’s eyes open, and he makes some shushing sounds before the boots reach them. 

“We’re safe,” he whispers, and the boots hit.

Cassie knows her daddy gets beat up sometimes. It happens to superheroes when they’re out fighting the bad guys. But she’s never seen it up close. Now, hands scrabble at Peter’s back, trying to pull him out from under the bed, but he holds fast with his magic hands, gasping in pain. His eyes are closed again. “Get—out—Parker!!” The voice whips into an angry snarl, and Cassie starts crying. 

“We’re okay,” Peter manages, just as the boots turn into angry hands, and his eyes are closed again. More of the voices are screaming and shouting and kicking at Peter, but he’s right. She’s safe. Under the bed, surrounded by Peter, a thick wall, and the bed’s railings, with the bed bolted to the floor, she was safe. Her back presses against the wall, but she has one hand still curled in the hem of Peter’s hoodie. Peter’s that fourth wall, the one thing standing between her and the angry, screeching boots.

She closes her eyes and pretends it’s over already.

* * *

**APRIL 8 - 11:11 AM**

Julia puts down the picture of Cassie and pulls up at a picture of her brother instead. She still hasn’t heard from him, and it’s starting to really freak her out. She’s been trying to gather more information about the missing drug addicts, but no one will talk for fear of being arrested themselves. There are five total drug addicts that disappeared around the time her brother did.

By putting a reward out for information, she’s already gotten a couple tips about what might’ve happened to Charlie. “He’s into angel dust now,” claimed one addict. “That shit’ll kill you.”

_ Angel dust _ . After a search through the police database, she quickly discovered that angel dust was a street term for phencyclidine, a drug she knew nothing about. “You know anything about PCP?” Julia asks Woo, as soon as he enters the station that morning.

“The drug?” he asks, leaning against the nearest table to stare at the wall full of photos and information.

“No, the musical,” she quips. “Yes, the drug.”

Woo scratches his head. “Yeah, I mean—I started out in narcotics, so… I know a lot about it. Why?”

“You know that other case I’m working on?” Julia raps the board in front of her with her pen. He nods. “According to my sources...That’s some of the missing drug addicts were getting into.”

He nods. “It’s pretty addictive—it’s a dissociative drug, makes you numb and out of it at low doses. Can be mixed with weed or tobacco… It’s not too common, honestly, ‘cause people’ve heard too many freaky stories to want to take it. It’s pretty unpredictable, and side effects all depend on how much you take, uh…”

“What about if” —she frowns— “you take it at higher doses?”

He shrugs, helpless. “Not good. Remember that rapper, Big Lurch?”

It sounds familiar, and she nods.

“He’s the one who killed his roommate and” —he scratches at his head again— “ate her?”

She remembers the news story.  _ The Cannibal Rapper: Man Gets Life for Woman’s Murder.  _ The perpetrator been reportedly found naked and covered in blood in the middle of the street; the victim had teeth marks all over her and her lungs torn from her chest. “No,” she says, blinking away her disbelief. “That’s PCP?”

He gives another helpless shrug. “I mean, that was an isolated incident—besides, the only people who act crazy violent on PCP are people on high doses with histories of violence.”

“And without a history of violence?”

“On high doses...there’s a lot of delusions, paranoia, suicidal thinking… If you put them in a calmer setting, they’ll get all spaced out, but any stressors will really make them freak out. I mean, and this still all varies from person to person, how much, how long—do you know, have your suspects been using for a long time?”

“I don’t know,” she answers. “I need more info. But this...this is a start.”

“Glad I could help,” says Woo. “Now, let’s go. We’ve got some more potential witnesses for the Paxton-Lang case.”

She nods. “Got it.” She shrugs on her jacket. “I’ll drive.”

* * *

**APRIL — 12:25 PM**

Pepper’s back again.

Again, again, again.

To Tony, it’s only been minutes. Time’s blurry now, jumping between seeing Peter’s bloodstained face and his plans for the HYDRA weapon. He can’t tell how much time has passed; he feels like he’s back in that fucking cave, where every second was a year and another pained heartbeat through a car battery.

She’s mad this time. She yells at him through the door, telling him he’s being childish and immature and he wishes he could scream back.

But he can’t. Not with Peter’s life on the line.

He’ll do whatever it takes to get Peter back home safe, even if it means ignoring the love of his life. As she continues to talk, he sits with his back against the door, and before long he’s crying again, legs slack on the floor, tears streaming down his face. He cries so hard that he can feel it in every part of him, so hard that he thinks he might throw up, so hard that he can feel his body wither with each sob. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t slept all night or because he hasn’t like this in months, but it happens, and all he can see is Peter in that fucking chair as Pepper yells through the door, and all at once he can’t breathe.

They have his kid.

His throat tightens to a metal straw, and every breath becomes a mountain, avalanches of panic crashing into his lungs and into his arc reactor. His hands shake like crazy, trembling as he tries to calm himself, but nothing is working. He can hear Pepper walk away with another shout. If he looked at the videoscreen beside him, he’d probably find her stabbing her finger in his direction like a knife, but he won’t look. He’s still struggling to breathe, tightness wrapping around his chest. His left arm hurts, and as soon as he can breathe again he struggles to his feet, clutching his arm to his chest. He stumbles over to the TV and touches it, leaving his hand there like he can pat Peter’s shoulder through the screen. It’s warm but dark, void of any life. He can’t help but remember the way Peter thrashed— 

  
They have his fucking  _ kid _ .

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 2:18 PM**

“Luke?”

“No.”

“Han Solo?”

“No.”

“Anakin?”

“No. Ned, it’s like you’re not even trying.”

Ned snorts. “Well, sorry! Tell me which one you are then.”

MJ looks up from her drawing to give him a half-annoyed look. “Darth Maul.”

“Darth—are you serious?”

She keeps sketching. “Yup.”

“But you’re not—MJ, that’s like—in what universe are you Darth Maul?”

“This one.”

Ned flips down on the floor and groans. “If Peter was here he would  _ agree _ with me!” He shakes his fist at the ceiling. “PETER!!!” A pencil smacks him on the side of the head. “Hey!”

MJ smirks. “Quit being such a loud dumbass, or my parents will make us go to the library or something.”

“I can’t help being a dumbass,” he mumbles, still looking up at the ceiling. “It’s in my bloo—hey!” Another pencil soars over his head.

“Where is Peter, anyway? He was supposed to be here” —she taps at her phone— “like an hour ago, what the hell. You did text him, right?”

Ned props himself up on his elbows. “Uh...yeah. A bunch. Maybe it didn’t send, lemme check.” When he taps open his and Peter’s conversation, all of his messages have sent. No loading bar, nothing. And they’re unread, too. “Maybe he overslept.”

“It’s past two,” MJ mentions. “Doubt it.”

Ned shrugs. “Maybe he had a long night.”

She scoffs. “Doing what?”

“Legos?” Ned offers.

MJ launches another pencil at his head. 

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 4:13 PM **

She was too harsh with him before, she knows it. The last time their AI shut down he was practically manic, unable to sleep or think until it was back online. “I know you’re going through a lot, Tony, but just talk to me, okay?” She sighs. “We’re going to get married, honey. You’re the most important person in my life. The most important relationship, and what matters most is communication. Right?”

Nothing.

“So just talk to me.  _ Talk _ to me.” 

It’s like talking to a wall. Actually, she  _ is  _ talking to a wall: one made of vibranium-reinforced steel.

“I’m sorry, Tony, I really am. I didn’t mean to get so...upset with you. I’m just worried, that’s all. You can’t—” She sighs. “Don’t shut me out like this. When you’re feeling...like this, we can work it out, but we have to do it together. You and me, remember? That’s how we do things now. Not like…” She gestures vaguely even though he’s probably not watching the camera feed. “...this.”

She begs and pleads and gets mad again and apologizes once more. It doesn’t matter; he’s not responding at all. There isn’t even a flutter of movement that she can see through the locked-down lab that would let her know that he heard her.

As soon as she gets back to the house, she calls Rhodey. There’s nothing else she can do. 

He picks up after the second ring. “Hey, Pep. How are you?”

“Fine—you talked to Tony ,lately?”

Scuffling on the other end. “No. Not since FRIDAY went off the rails. How is he?”

Pepper tenses. “He… He shut himself in his lab.”

“Sounds like him. FRIDAY’s still down?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you shouldn’t be too surprised. He always gets like this when he feels...attacked. Just wait it out.”

Pepper sits down on the couch and shifts the phone to her other ear. “Yeah, I know. I’m just worried.”

“This is Tony we’re talking about,” Rhodey reminds her. “He used to spend weeks in that place, just working, trying to make some genius idea become reality. He’ll be fine.”

“He’s not eating,” Pepper adds.

“There’s food in there,” he replies. “He’s not gonna starve, Pepper.”

She sighs. “I know.”

Rhodey pauses. “I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He knows how to keep himself alive, even if it is on coffee and protein bars. He’s just gotta get this out of his system, you’ll see.”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

She calls Peter next. If there’s anyone who can get Tony out of a funk, it’s him. She calls his cell and his home phone, but both eventually go to voicemail. So she votes to text him again later—he’s probably busy with homework—and she texts Happy instead.

_ You know about Tony?  _ she texts.

It takes him a few seconds, but he does respond.  _ Yes. Still in the lab? _

_ Yeah. Hey - you heard from Peter lately? I think he might be able to get Tony out of there. _

Three dots flicker on the screen.  _ Got an email from May. Said Peter got a scholarship to do some research thing - they won’t be back for a few weeks. _

_ He’s taking time off school? _

_ Yes. _

Pepper blinks at her phone.  _ Wow. Good for him. _

_ Email said there might not be service - I don’t know if you can still contact him.  _

_ Ok,  _ she replies.  _ Thanks. _

At least she doesn’t have to worry about Peter; having to worry about whether or not Tony is taking care of himself is like torture.

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 5:22 PM**

“ _ Mi amor _ ?”

Julia blinks. She’s been staring at this little girl’s file for far too long, and now she sits back in her chair and rubs at her eyes. “Yeah… Sorry.”

Cristian sits down across from her and taps his finger on the file. “They shouldn’t have given you a case  _ como esto _ , Julia. I know how…”

She winces.

“It’s not going to be easy for you.”

She flips the case file over. She’s not supposed to let him see confidential files like this one. “It doesn’t matter… It’ll be a quick one, I think.”

“Why?” he prompts.

“‘Cause the kid lives with her mom and stepdad, but the biological dad is missing, too.”

“You think he took her?”

She shrugs. “It’s either that, or someone took them both. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when kids go missing, it’s a relative. And if the dad’s gone…”

“...then he took her.”

She nods, fiddling with the edge of the file. “So we’ve just gotta find where he took the girl, probably to a grandparent or something, and case closed.”

Cristian takes her hand from the papers and holds lightly. “If you’re so sure that the father did it,” he asks, “then why is this bothering you so much?”

Julia looks back down at the file, where Cassie’s name sticks out in front of her. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. “I don’t know.”

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 7:00 PM**

The phone rings. He scrambles to pick it up, and the voice on the other end growls in his ear. He knows the routine by now. “Eyes on the screen, Stark.”

He watches in barely contained horror as, once again, Peter is dragged into the chair as his captors lock in his arm restraints. This time, he’s more awake, blinking and confused and shouting something at someone offscreen.  _ No, Peter _ , he thinks. He knows what the kid looks like when he’s about to fight, and he’s got that face on right now, but it’s smattered with bruises—

He swings his foot out at his captor’s face, but his movements are floppy and sluggish, slowed by drugs. His face is swollen and purpled, his knee is a mess of blood, and burns line the left side of his head. He shouts out, but the sound is so crowded by the other yelling in the room that Tony doesn’t understand him. It isn’t until they hit him in response, sending a  _ crack  _ through the middle of his face; blood snakes down his bare chest.

Again, Tony is helpless. “Peter!” he screeches, and he fists the phone in one hand, pressing it against the side of his head as though it’ll get him closer to his kid. He’s  _ helpless _ . “Peter, it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna—stop it! Don’t fucking—”

“Quiet, Stark!” barks Charlie.

He bites into his hand to make himself stop. His heart pummels away in his chest—he can’t breathe, so he slumps to the floor and tries to inhale through his nose, but his chest burns.

Finally, once Peter is locked into the chair, with one guy pinning his head to the back of the chair to stop him from moving. He’s trying to stay calm, Tony notices, but his eyes are wide and he’s shaking like a leaf. “I need you to do something for me, Stark.”

“I’m doing,” Tony growls, “everything you—”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” snaps Charlie. “I’m in fucking charge here, Tony Stark. Me. Not you. Me. Apologize.”

His voice catches. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Louder.”

“Sorry,” he says again.

Peter’s head turn at the sound of his voice, and he starts with a croak, “Mr. Sta—” 

They hit him again—”Shut  _ up! _ ” cries one—and this time the guy holding his head pulls out a knife and puts it to Peter’s throat.

Every cell in Tony’s body screams, and bites down again into his hand, harder.

“What you’re gonna do for me,” continues Charlie, as if blood isn’t currently gushing from Peter’s nose, “is make sure that  _ bitch  _ stops coming up to your door. We don’t need that kind of attention. It’s dangerous.”

“Please,” says Tony, but his eyes are trained on Peter. How long can the kid last like this? Sure, he’s got superpowers, but he’s only sixteen and he’s been tortured for so long—what if Tony doesn’t make the weapon in time? “Let me—let me talk to her. She’ll keep coming unless you let me—”

“Is that a threat, Stark?” There’s a red line down the side of Peter’s neck now, and he’s whimpering, eyes fixed on the knife. 

Onscreen, the room is still, the only movement now the flighty twitches of Peter’s body. “No,” Tony says quickly, and he swallows hard. He has to be careful. “It’s just a suggestion. Please. Let me talk to her. She’s my fiancé, she’s worried—”

“Break up with her.”

Tony stares at the man on his television screen. What? “No,” he says automatically. “I can’t—”

“This isn’t a game,” Charlie says. Picking up his hammer, he moves towards Peter, and the boy flinches back, twisting his body in the chair. “I already planned it out. I’ll tell you just what to say. I’ll have Parker on lockdown the whole time.”

“No—please—I just need to talk—don’t make me—”

“You’ll do exactly as I say,” warns Charlie, swinging his hammer from side to side, “or I’ll take out Peter’s other leg.” 

Tony doesn’t miss the way Peter’s entire body shakes in response.

“Please,” Tony begs, “if I could just explain—”

Charlie laughs, and sweat drips down his forehead. “Explain what? That her precious Tony Stark is my bitch?”

Everything is crumbling between his fingers. “No—no—please, please, just don’t make me—don’t hurt him, I’ll—please, this is” — _ too much,  _ he wants to say,  _ for me to take— “ _ not gonna work—”

“Shut  _ up! _ ” 

Tony hates that they can see him right now, that they can see how much he’s shaking, that they know how much this is destroying him. He’s too old for this.

“You’re gonna do it,” Charlie continues, “and you’re not gonna fucking  _ whine  _ about it, Stark! You’re gonna do  _ exactly  _ as I say!”

* * *

**APRIL 8 — 10:21 PM**

Of course she went back. Tony’s her fiance, after all, and she’s not going to let him lock himself away in his lab like this. So she heads back, this time with a venti iced coffee, but this one’s decaf. She knows how he gets when he’s like this, so she’s not about to give him his usual six shots of espresso.

“Tony,” she begins, mostly because she doesn’t know how else to start, “I brought you…” There’s a strange noise from the inside of the door, some clicking and releasing. “...coffee.”

The door opens slowly, as though a hesitant child expectant of a scolding is on the other side; instead, Tony’s standing there now, and Pepper almost chokes on her surprise. “Tony!”

He looks like a wreck.

Pepper has seen Tony on his worst days (and his best ones, too), but she’s never seen him like  _ this _ . It’s something entirely beyond hurt or traumatized or upset. There’s simply no word for it. It’s like he’s been  _ destroyed  _ from the inside out _ .  _ Lack of sleep is written all over his face; Tony is ghostlike—exhaustion bleeds from his features. “Tony,” she echoes, and his face is completely empty. She knows Tony better than anyone, but she’s never seen...

“You have to stop,” he says first. His voice is scratchy, so dry that it cracks on the second word. To her surprise, he doesn’t even glance at the coffee. “Please.” He winces.

She’s never, ever seen him like this. “Honey—” She blinks at him. “Come on, let’s go home—”

“I’m staying here,” he continues, and his voice is so strange that she takes another step towards him. He’s  _ shaking _ . “You have to go. I’m not leaving.”

“Like hell I’m leaving,” Pepper snaps, and when she moves forward again, her hair tickles the side of her face. She only pulled it into a messy bun before leaving the house. “This isn’t healthy, this isn’t safe, and I’m  _ worried _ , Tony—this isn’t like you!”

He’s eerily silent, and his eyes fix on hers. His gaze is so perfectly still, like it was the day he proposed.  _ I know,  _ he said that day,  _ more than anything else in the world, that I would do anything for you. You mean the world to me.  _ He was so still then, so sure, so positively still that the world seemed to stop around them.  _ I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I would die for you. _

She laughed, then, and rolled her eyes.  _ Don’t be so dramatic. _

_ I’m serious _ , he said, and he kissed her palm.  _ I would. _

“I don’t” —his voice falls into nothing— “want to see you anymore.”

Pepper ignores him. “Did you sleep last night?”

“Why does it matter?” he snaps back, and then he flinches. There’s something wrong here, but Pepper can’t put her finger on it. His sentences are all stilted, all wrong, like he’s reading off of a broken teleprompter. “I don’t—want you—coming back here. This is my lab, and you don’t belong here.”

“I’m no engineer,” she says, “but I belong here as much as you do! You can’t just kick me out of your life because you’re  _ scared _ —I’m not going away anytime soon!”

Again, Tony steps back. She examines his face all over again, but still she doesn’t understand. He blinks, finally, and his mouth twitches. “I hate you,” he says.

The air tastes bitter. “Don’t do that,” she snaps. She knows she came back with the intent of being gentle with him, but she’s pushing past that. “You can’t just push me away because you’re scared! Just talk to me, Tony. I’m here and I’m not going away, you’re gonna hurt yourself like this—”

“Shut  _ up! _ ” he shouts, and this time his feet stay rooted in the ground. He’s holding his left wrist, rubbing it, which Pepper knows is a sign of severe anxiety for him. “Just listen. We can’t—be together anymore.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

His eyes glance left. “We’re not good—together. It’s not—it’s not working. I don’t want you here.”

“Tony—”

“I don’t love you.”

Her heart twists; her body stiffens. It’s the most hurtful thing he could say to her, and he knows it.  _ I love you, Pep,  _ he said just the other night. They were watching  _ Big Hero 6  _ for the fortieth time in their living room, Tony’s sprawled over their wide couch with his head in her lap. She simply made a  _ mmhm  _ sound in response and tilted her head back against the couch cushion, stroking her fingers through his hair.

For such an incredibly intelligent man, Tony didn’t watch a lot of documentaries or historical films. He watched cartoons. It was something they had in common—something about having to grow up too fast made both of them crave the easy rhythm of cartoon movies all the time. As they watched, he kept saying it, all while watching the TV.  _ God, I love you. _

_ What is it?  _ she asked finally.  _ You want me to join a superhero-robot team with you? Is that what you’re picturing? Pepper Potts, the next Avenger? _

He laughed.  _ No, I mean… I’ve just never felt like this before with someone.  _

_ That’s why we’re engaged,  _ she reminded him with a tap to his cheek.

_ I know.  _ He closed his eyes and smiles, that easy, dopey smile that she cherished so much.  _ It’s just… I want that. _

_ What? _

_ That.  _ And he pointed vaguely at the screen, where the young protagonist was talking animatedly to his robot friend.  _ Kids. _

Now, Pepper stares at him, still blinking in shock. “Don’t,” she repeats. “I know you’re upset—don’t say something you’ll regret.”

He takes a step towards her this time. He’s in pain—she always knows when he’s in pain like this, but he looks different this time. “Pepper,” he says. “I don’t want to see you here again.”

“Don’t do that, Tony, just come home—”

She sees it coming a split second before it happens, and the drop in her stomach isn’t soon enough to allow her to duck—he  _ hits  _ her, whips his right hand across her face hard enough that she’s left stunned. It’s so out of place that she stands there dumbfounded for a couple seconds before fury rushes in. “You asshole,” she seethes, dropping her hand from her cheek. Tony flinches, and she wants to slap the look right off of his face. “You goddamn  _ asshole! _ ” He doesn’t say anything. There was a rule they made, when they first started dating. They each had their flaws, piles of trust issues and poor decisions and boundaries…  _ But you can’t ever, ever hit me,  _ she said.  _ If you do, I’ll be gone. I know what it’s like, and if it happens again, then this is over. I can’t do that again.  _

He gave her this sad, tilted look.  _ Me, too. _

And that was it. Over the years, they’d had their fair share of disputes, fights, and screaming matches, but they  _ never  _ got physical, never neared a physical threat or even abusive language. They’d never laid a hand on one another.

Until today. 

Pepper twists at the ring on her finger, feeling the burn of shame wash over her face. She can’t believe, after all this time—

“Get out,” Tony says, and she can’t even see him anymore, just streaks of color blurred by rising tears. 

“You’re just like your father,” she hears herself say, and Tony’s body seems to tense with her words. “A selfish, abusive asshole.” Then she finally twists the ring off of her finger and drops it at his feet before storming away.

Tony doesn’t say a word as she goes.

She hopes she never has to see his face again. After all this time… Tony was just like the rest of them. As the heat fades from her cheek, she realizes she’s still holding his coffee.

She throws it as far as she can.

* * *

**APRIL 9 — 11:14 AM**

“I don’t want to do this,” says Riri Williams for the umpteenth time that night. “He’s gonna  _ kill _ me.”

Nick grips the steering wheel harder. “Not likely, kid. You’re fifteen. He won’t touch you.”

_ People tend to change,  _ Riri thinks darkly,  _ when you torture their sixteen-year-old intern.  _ But she says nothing, instead fiddling with the box of supplies in her lap. 

She’s the youngest in Charlie’s crew by a few years, and she’s the only one who hasn’t gotten into any heavy drug shit. Her older brother Eric, who practically raised her, used to run around with Charlie and the others, selling and using, but he dove in way too deep, got himself killed over a money squabble.

After he died, she went into foster care for a while. Got a nice family, a real good one who fueled her passion for engineering and helped her learn more about computers. Even though she loved them to death, she loved her brother more. So when Charlie came to her a few weeks ago with a proposition to avenge her brother and change the world, she couldn’t say no. She left her perfect world behind and joined Charlie’s team.

Now… She’s starting to regret it.

From behind the steering wheel, Nick looks over at her. “Riri, don’t worry. He’s not gonna do anything to you, not while we have Spider-guy.”

“But what if he—”

“He won’t,” he assures her. “We’ve got cameras all over him. You don’t got nothin’ to worry about.”

That doesn’t stop her stomach from crawling up into her throat. She feels sick. 

From the base to Stark’s lab, it’s a six-hour drive, so they pull over halfway through, stopping at a McDonald’s to get something to eat.

The drive-thru’s five miles long, so Nick parks it just outside the place and hops out of the car. “Whaddaya want?” he asks. She gives him her order, and he taps it into his phone so he won’t forget. “Don’t go anywhere,” he jokes as soon as he’s done, and he slams the door shut. 

Riri relaxes as soon as he exits the car. She’s never felt safe around them, not really, only closer to her brother. Eric used to get himself into a lot of trouble hanging with Charlie and his crew, and now Riri sees why. She never thought Charlie would go so far as to… Nausea twists in her stomach as she recalls seeing the little girl with the brutalized arm and the teenage boy reeking of burning flesh. She didn’t sign up for this. 

She didn’t sign up to be an accomplice to torture.

She’s alone in the car now, and when she drops her gaze to the driver’s side, she spots the keys sitting in the cupholder farthest from her, glinting dangerously. Her hand twitches. How easy would it be? She could take the keys and drive, leave Nick in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his hunger and his tempestuous temper. It would be so  _ easy _ . She could stick the keys into the ignition and drive like she’s Ferris Bueller in a bright red Ferrari, blazing over the streets of wherever-the-hell-they-are, free.

She digs the keys out of the cupholder and raises them up.  _ Free _ . It’s a concept she hasn’t known in a long time. It’s not easy to be free when the people caring for her are aggressive, delusional addicts. 

She’s just a kid herself, really, so seeing a kid just a year older than her restrained to a chair and drugged up to his eyeballs made confused fear ripple over her. If they’re willing to do  _ that  _ to a sixteen-year-old and a seven-year-old, what would they do to her if she tried to leave?

She drops the keys back into their original position. Who is she kidding? She’ll never be free of them. She’s too damn  _ scared _ . She’s seen them at their worst and at their best. She’s been beaten at their hands and protected by their weapons. These people are the only link she has to her family, the only true connection she has to the world. Besides, she’s one of the only people in the crew who knows how to calm Charlie down. If she can do that, then maybe she can talk him out of hurting these kids. 

If she can’t run away, then at least she can help those two escape. She hasn’t done something good like this in a long time; maybe this can be her redemption.

* * *

It’s around two when they finally arrive. Nick parks way outside the property and sends her the directions from his phone. Shoving the box of supplies into her arms, he reminds her, “It’s gonna be a long walk, but you’ll be okay. Stay out of sight. Remember, Lang unlocked the back gate and took out all the cameras. Stay  _ out of sight _ , you hear me? If they find you, you’re fucking screwed.”

“Great,” she mutters.

Nick scowls. “This isn’t a fucking joke, Riri. This is the only way we’re ever gonna come out on top. This is the way we’re gonna save the world.”

She hates it when they talk like this, like torturing and blackmailing is gonna stop world hunger or bring her brother back. “Fine,” she says.

“Now, tell me what you’re gonna do.” She repeats it back to him a couple times, and once he seems satisfied, he settles back into the driver’s seat and nods his head in the direction of Stark’s lab. “Then get moving. We don’t have a whole lot of time.” He pats her shoulder. “You got it, Riri. I’m gonna call Charlie—he’ll make Stark open that back door to let you in. We’re all counting on you.”

She gives him a half-grimace, half-smile and shifts the box in her hands.

It’s not a difficult trek, but the box makes her much less stealthy than she’d usually consider herself to be. Nobody sees her, though, and when she finally passes through the back gate and makes it to the back door of Stark’s lab, she sets the box down and bangs firmly on the door. It’s a strange-looking place; the outside is mostly lined with shining white plates or exposed metal. It looks geometrical, every line connecting to another at a ninety-degree angle. Where windows should be are massive sheets of reinforced metal, and it covers the door, too, as well as any other opening that would be useful. There’s no sign of life from within, but Stark must be in there; Nick said he would call.

There’s a sudden  _ whirr  _ before a series of clicks, and then the metal over the door slides into the ground. A few seconds later, Tony Stark stands in front of her, silent. She doesn’t know what she expected, but this middle-aged man with graying hairs and tired eyes holding his arm like it’s broken.

She clears her throat. Her heart’s spinning in her chest—she’s usually behind the scenes, so meeting the man who she’s heard sob into his phone because of what Charlie did...this is different. “...hi.”

Tony Stark clutches his arm a little harder, and his eyes linger on her before scanning the area behind her. He doesn’t say a word. 

Riri holds out the box. “There’s, um…” His stare is relentless. “...food. And the parts you asked for.”

He looks around again, like he’s waiting for someone else to show up, but this time his eyes twitch and he glares at her with a vicious heat. She thinks, briefly, if Nick could get to her in time before Tony Stark strangled her to death. She shoves the box into his hands and bolts back to Nick’s car.

As she runs, she can still see the look of absolute devastation on his face.

* * *

**APRIL 9 — 7:08 PM**

Ned’s been texting Peter since yesterday, but he still hasn’t gotten a response.

Early Monday morning, he shows up at the Parkers’ apartment. They’ve still gotta work on that project for history class; he’s come to Peter’s early before, and he texted May, so he hopes it’s okay. Ned doesn’t live far from Peter, so it’s not much of a trip anyway. 

But neither of them are responding. His strings of texts to both May and Peter are unanswered. He knocks repeatedly, but no one answers. There’s light trickling out from under the door, but after knocking for a solid ten minutes and getting no response, he assumes they’re asleep. 

Maybe they’re both sick, he thinks. Or they went on a trip and forgot to tell him. 

It’s a little strange, this whole situation, but stranger things have happened. At least if they’re together, Ned knows they’re okay.

  
  


* * *

By lunch, he’s worked himself up to a full freak-out. “You good, Nedward?” MJ asks, after launching a crumpled sketch of the cafeteria lady at him. “You look like your dog just died.”

He shakes his head. “Peter’s not responding.”

“He’s not your Siamese twin, dude,” she reminds him. “Let the guy breathe. He probably took the day off.”

Ned snorts. “Peter doesn’t take days off! He’s in four APs!” Maybe he’s at Tony’s. That could happen, right? He’s had to stay home from school after recovering from Spider-man injuries before. It could happen. “I’ll...be right back.” He snatches up his phone and runs out into the hallway, dialing Mr. Stark’s private number. It’s meant for emergencies only, but Ned can’t help it. He has to know what’s happening to Peter. 

Mr. Stark doesn’t pick up, so Ned texts him instead.  _ hey mr. stark do you know where peter is? he’s not answering his phone or anything _

_ is he with you? i know you’re busy but i’m really worried _

_ sorry mr. stark can you please just get back to me? may isn’t answering either _

He texts Peter, so much that he knows Peter’s gonna kill him when he finally responds. 

_ hey peter plz don’t be dead haha _

_ where r u man _

_ u sick? _

_ ill ask around for notes if u want  _

He wouldn’t be worrying so much if this wasn’t Peter Benjamin Parker who’d gone radio-silent. Peter texts all the time. Nonstop. He texts ike there’s a demon in his hands. He texts while Spider-man, texts while driving, texts while in class. Any time Ned texted him, Peter responded. He’d woken Peter up from his naps by waking him up with the  _ buzz-buzz  _ of his texts.

And now he’s gone completely silent. It’s creepy, and Ned lets him know.

_ dude,  _ he texts, _ this is creepy lemme k ur alive. u got ur phone takin away? _

_ u with mr. stark? please lmk _

_ where’s may?  _

_ dude respoooond _

Peter doesn’t answer.

* * *

By the end of the day, Ned’s full-on freaked.

For the second time that day, Ned finds himself at the Parkers’ apartment, banging on the door.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Peter won’t answer the phone. May won’t answer the phone. Tony won’t answer the phone. And the worst part is, he can see light still under the door. He redials and redials and double-checks the numbers and redials again until finally, fucking finally, Tony Stark picks up.

Euphoria shoots through Ned, the kind of relief that makes him slump back against the wall. “Oh, thank God! Peter hasn’t responded to my texts in like two  _ days  _ and I thought maybe he was with  _ you  _ on some kind of important mission—like an Avengers thing or something—so you gotta let me know that he’s okay, I’ve been calling for—”

“Ned.”

Ned stops talking. He’s never heard Mr. Stark say his name like that. “Yes—um, yes, Mr. Stark, sir?”

“I need you to listen very carefully,” states the man on the other line. It’s Tony Stark’s voice for sure, but something’s off. “Peter isn’t coming back for a while.”

Ned feels sick, dread churning in his chest. “What—whaddaya mean—not coming back? Is he hurt? Is he” —_not dead_, Ned thinks, _shit, please,_ _not dead not dead_— “on an Avengers thing?”

There’s a strained silence. “I can’t tell you where he is. It would put you in a lot of danger.” Ned blurts out more questions, but Tony stops him. “Ned. Stop.  _ Listen _ . Stop looking into this. If you do, you could put Peter in a lot of danger, understand?”

“Is he okay?” he squeaks out.

“He’s fine. For now. Right now, your mission is to keep quiet about it.” He’s speaking slowly, carefully, like every word is painful. “Make sure no one get suspicious—if anyone finds out anything about Peter he could die, got it?

Ned swallows. “Got it.”

“Good. If anyone asks, he’s doing a research program somewhere. Alaska—no service. 

“Okay, um… And M-May? What do i say?”

There’s a long silence on the other end, followed by a series of muffled noises. After a minute or so, the noise clears and Tony responds. “May Parker is in the hospital right now.”

Ned feels like he’s being strangled; his voice comes out smaller, weaker. “Wha-what? From the—the—the stuff that Peter’s involved in?”

A pause. “Yes. She’ll be okay...eventually. I need you to stay calm about this. If you tell anyone, I will find out. The Avengers are working with SHIELD on this one, Ned. If they find out you told anyone, you’ll be arrested. You. Can’t. Tell. Anyone.”

“Okay, okay, but… Can I talk to him?”

“No.” Ned’s heart clenches. “I’m trusting you, Ned. Peter’s life is in your hands.”

* * *

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks like quarantine's got me writing more :) thanks so much to addie for editing, ur the best <3, everybody should def look forward to more of this, stay clean everyone, be safe! it'll pass :)


	4. hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Now she’s crying, but they’ve gotten so used to crying around each other that Peter knows what to do. “C’mere—careful,” he says, and he moves his arm so that she can lie down and curl up in his skinny arms. Once she’s comfortable, he wraps his arm around her and holds her close. “It’ll be...okay,” he tells Cassie, and the little girl cries more, burying her face in his bloodied shirt._

* * *

**ONE**

**MONTH**

**LATER**

* * *

**MAY 8 — 1:04 PM**

“Give me the update.”

“Yeah, uh… That shit’s broken.”

“Broken? He _ just _sent you the new one.”

“Yeah… The prototype he sent us last week—didn’t work, man. We tried it on like...deer and shit, but it’s just like a blast with some blue light. Nothing like what you told me. Just injures ‘em kinda bad.”

“But he’s got everything he _ needs _, right? You’ve been giving him the supplies?”

“Well, yeah—”

“Then what’s the problem?” A frustrated sigh. “You’ve had him under lock and key for a fucking _ month _ , Keene. And you’re telling me he couldn’t make one _ little weapon _ in all this time when he does it for a living?”

“I mean—I’m doin’ my best—he’s motivated, that’s for fucking sure. Sends a new gun every week. This one was better than the last one—”

“—and no better than any weapon the army possesses. You’re not getting supplied for nothing, Keene. I don’t have time for you to sit around getting high while people start poking around in Stark’s life. Pick up the pace or I’ll cut you off!”

“No—no—we’re making real progress, good progress, you got nothing to worry about, sir—yeah? Keep giving us our shit, and we’ll keep doing what you want. We—uh—we just sent someone over to him to pick up the next prototype today. We’re gonna test that one as soon as it gets here.”

“Fine—that’s fine. I’ll call again later. Don’t let me down.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

**MAY 8 — 2:07 PM**

Everything is blurry, the world slurred before his eyes. His mouth tastes like syrupy sleep and he can’t find the strength to sit up. He’s in the lab, he knows, because the floor is cold and smooth and gray. How long has he been here? A migraine builds behind his eyes, and he presses a palm to his left temple, trying to ease it. It comes back in pieces—Peter’s tired, bloody face, a high-pitched screeching, a little girl’s crying. A hammer. A taser. A needle.

The guilt floods in. “Peter,” he chokes out, and the room comes into focus. Weapons parts litter the floor, glimmering in the hazy, fluorescent light. A half-made gun—_ fuck _, he remembers now, through the aching, pulsing in his head. He was building it for him. For Charlie. So that he could get Peter back home safe and sound. The guilt inside of him grows more, swelling into a rancid pit. There are blueprints covered in crossed-out ideas and hastily written formulas scattered over his desk, and DUM-E whirs nervously in the corner, organizing and reorganizing a set of tools.

He’s on his side, sprawled about between a few attempted power sources and a stack of scratch paper. Propping himself up with weakened arms, he sits up. 

He’s alone.

Tony’s never felt so alone. He must’ve passed out at some point, but he can’t remember when. Is that normal? He doesn’t sleep, not now, not with Peter on the line, not unless his body collapses and his mind gives out. He’s never worked this hard before. Even when he was trapped in that cave in Afghanistan when he resigned himself to build or die. This is different–this is his _ kid _, and that brings out a whole other universe of pain, a thousand times worse than being waterboarded. Seeing Peter in pain is a kind of all-consuming, world-ending suffering that keeps him up all day and night, just working.

Tony’s made three prototypes in the month he’s been given. He struggles to his feet, grabbing the lab table beside him for support; before he can stand, his weakened legs buckle beneath him. With a cry, he falls down again, but a robotic arm catches him. It’s U, his other hydraulic arm, and it whirs worriedly at him. “Thanks, buddy,” he croaks. His head is spinning. “Take me...over there.” He gestures vaguely to the couch nearest to him. U takes his arm gently, as though it knows just how fragile he is, and rolls slowly where directed. Tony leans on the robot and tries to catch his breath. He’s not hungry, just nauseous, but he knows he needs to eat something. God knows how long he was passed out like that. Hours? Days? What if he missed a chance to see Peter again?

U settles Tony in the middle of the couch, where he collapses with a gasp. Sometimes, he forgets how old he is—right now, he feels every bit of forty-eight years old, or maybe twenty years older. “Thanks. You always...got my back. Think you could hand me the prototype? And...some water?” U picks up a half-empty glass of water and rolls over to him, whirring excitedly at his findings, and then moves on to find the weapon. Where did he put it? Spotting it on the floor, a few screws loose, he knows he must’ve dropped it when he passed out. It turns around, looking for the weapon. “Look down, buddy. Be careful.” Amused, Tony watches as U stares confusedly at the fallen object. “I know… It’s been a while since I’ve made stuff like that, hm? Well… Not my idea.” His robots—one of which is clearly confused by the situation and keeps reorganizing the entire workshop—are his only form of social interaction in this hell outside of Charlie’s phone calls, and he’s so, so grateful for it. “I don’t know what I’d do without you idiots,” he says, gulping down the water U gave him. “You keep me…” He finds himself thinking of Pepper again. “...sane.” The way her hair smells, the way she’d wrinkle her nose every time he opened a bag of Doritos. _ That’s disgusting, _ she’d comment. _ Take it somewhere else or I swear I’m kicking you out of the house. _

_ They’re Doritos! he’d protest. _

She’d move across the room, laughing, mock-coughing, and covering her nose. _ They’re awful—oh my god, I can smell them from here! When did you even have time to get those? _

_ Well, _ he’d start, crunching on another chip, _ there are these wonderful contraptions called vending machines in the main building— _

_ Ugh! Take them out of here, Tony—or I’ll empty every vending machine I see, I swear to God! _

_ Fine, fine! _ He’d wrap up the bag. _ I’ll save it for later. For now… _He’d come at her for a kiss, and she’d squeal, running away.

_ No! Ohmygod—those damn Doritos—hey! No! Not until you brush your teeth— _ She’d fake gag. _ I’m gonna sue the CEO of Doritos if you don’t— _They’d chase each other around the kitchen, laughing and screaming and running until Happy came in asking what was wrong.

He shakes his throbbing head, ridding himself of the intrusive memory. She could never forgive for how he hurt her; she’s not coming to save him. “No…” he croaks, remembering what he did to her. He can’t stop thinking about it—the look of raw betrayal on her face, the tingling in his right palm, tears welling up that she blinked away. It replays in his head, over and over. “How could I hurt you, honey, how could I…” His face is wet again, tears slipping down his face, as poisonous guilt seeps into him. “I _ had _ to—” he chokes out, and then he’s sobbing. He’s still exhausted, so the tears come easy, spilling as a tidal wave of shame hits him, and he crumples, pressing his hands over his face in the hopes that it’ll all go away. He wishes he could fucking erase it all—start over from when he first met Peter, from when he first told Pepper he loved her, from when he first realized he’d made a family for himself. “God—I’m _ so fucking sorry!” _ His throat is thick with _ sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry _, and his breath hitches each time he tries to calm down. He fucking hates himself for what he’s done. Because of him, Peter’s in pain, and Pepper thinks he hates her. He claws at his hair and his neck, and that horrific feeling of shame congeals over his skin, making him want to scream.

This whole month has been like a nightmare he can’t shake. Every time he passes out, he wakes up thinking it’s over and is forced back into the realization that he’s in hell. Day after day after day of watching his kid tortured, of so little sleep that he sees double sometimes, that he hears voices pinging off the walls…

The doorbell is ringing, beeping incessantly, and icy fear kicks him in the gut. How long has that been going on? How did he miss it? He pulls himself up, but it’s difficult; his body is stiffened from his stint of unconsciousness, so he calls U over, and the one-armed robot helps him to the door. It’s Sunday, he remembers, and that means they’ve sent that black girl to the lab to give him his supplies and collect his latest prototype. His latest model, one using a different firing mechanism, is nowhere near ready. (Honestly, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to make a weapon that satisfies Charlie’s needs, but he can’t think about that.)

It takes him a couple tries to open the door. His shaky fingers won’t let him push in the passcode. Finally, he manages, and the metal sheet blocking her entry slides out of her way, and the girl waves from the other end. She’s wearing a blue T-shirt and jean shorts, and when she picks up the cardboard box at her feet, she struggles. It must be heavy. Her kinky hair is tied low into twin buns, and she nudges the door open with her foot.

Peter has those shoes, too.

Converse—pink ones. _ Really? _ Tony said when he saw the kid wearing them for the first time. _ Pink? _

_ It’s 2018, Mr. Stark, _ Peter laughed. He was sitting on one of Tony’s lab tables next to a soldering kit, kicking his legs out and adjusting his goggles with one gloved hand and reaching into a bag of Tostitos with the other. _ Everyone’s gotta have something pink. Otherwise, you’re, like, supporting the patriarchy. _ He stretched his legs out so they were closer to Tony, and the kid grinned. _ I love them. _

Tony rolled his eyes. _ I wasn’t complaining about the color choice, buddy. You don’t have to hound me about deconstructing masculinity, Peter—I own fourteen silk shirts in varying shades of pink and a suit in fuchsia. Sometimes, you just gotta shake things up. _

_ That’s what _ I _ think! _cried Peter through a mouthful of chips.

_ No talking with your mouth full—jeez, whoever taught you about toxic masculinity forgot to teach you about table manners, good lord, you’re gonna choke— _

Peter just grabbed another handful.

He stares at her shoes, and she ducks his gaze, watching the floor intently. “Um…” she starts, just to fill the silence. “Can I…” Just seeing her sickens him, and he flinches when she comes closer, carrying a cardboard box. “I, uh… I brought you more food. Sorry nothing’s fresh, Charlie doesn’t want us going to grocery stores, you know, too conspicuous or whatever, only McDonald’s drive-thrus, so we just, uh… Nevermind. I’ve got fruit this time, though.” She strains to carry the box, shifting it around in her arms. “I’ve gotta, uh…” She gestures with the hand that’s trapped under the box. 

It’s clear now that she’s trying to get past him, and Tony shuffles back against the wall, watching the whole way, to let her carry it through the hallway and drop it with a _ clunk _onto the nearest table. Every movement she makes is like a stab to the heart; he hates her with a blaze that he can’t quite explain. The girl visits him once a week, every Sunday, mostly in the night or early morning. “Peaches, pineapple, mixed veggies… Oh, yeah, plus more beans.” She sifts through the box, cans clanking as she does. “Enough for the week, I think, but I’m no nutrition expert, you know? I tried to get enough protein, Renee says you need sixty grams of protein a day, and I got real confused, but at least they put it on the label, or I’d be screwed. I did my best, but Charlie said it didn’t matter too much, as long as I got you enough calories to last…” Her voice trails off as she looks up at him again, and as their eyes meet, something in her face changes. He hopes his eyes cut into her; he hopes she knows how much damage she’s done through his glare alone. “Um.” She averts his gaze once, and then her eyes flit right back, staring openly at his face. It must be obvious that he’s been crying, and that he’s a fucking mess, but Tony doesn’t give a fuck. “Are you okay?”

His nostrils flare. Like a pot of boiling oil dumped over his head, that ripping, tearing anger that’s been inside of him all this time breaks through, and all of a sudden he can’t even breathe. “O-okay?” he garbles, and the word is so twisted in his mouth that he can feel it drip acid onto his tongue. “Y-you’re asking—you—m-me i-if–” He hasn’t talked to anyone face-to-face in weeks (his only social interaction being the girl, who he avoids talking to at all costs), and it shows, because somehow all the words are coming out wrong. 

“Um,” says the girl again. “Sorry. I’ll just keep, um, doing, the…” But she doesn’t move, unable to break their locked eye contact, and Tony’s rage builds. How can she stand her, looking so normal and innocent, when she and her friends do all that shit to his kid?

He wants to tear this girl to fucking shreds—she’s the one who did this, the one who tortured Peter and made his _ kid _ scream for him, put him in so much pain that he sobbed even when no one was touching him at all. Without thinking, Tony lunges at her with both hands outstretched, staggering forward with his aching body, blood-tinged fury edging his vision. “Y-y-you _ did _ this!” he shouts, and although his voice sounds more like a raspy screech, he means every bit of it.

Startled, the girl ducks his grasp, slipping over stray papers and running to the other side of the lab. “I didn’t do anything!” she yells back.

He barely has any control over his body; he throws himself, all quivering muscles and soured rage, in the direction of that sadistic girl. “Y-_ you _—”

“I’m not _ like _them!” When he comes closer, she bolts again. She’s too fast for him, especially in this state, and he keeps tripping over his own feet and falling into walls. “Stop—stop! I didn’t do it, I promise, I didn’t—” 

“Y-you—how could—you—you—”

“It’s not _ me, _ I didn’t hurt him, I’ve never—ah!” She trips over Tony’s prototype and ends up sprawled on the ground, and before Tony can stop himself, he falls, too, his legs stumbling over empty air, and falls only a few feet from her. She can get up again, Tony’s on his way to her, moving frantically, half-crawling and about to grab her, when the _ fucking phone rings. _

Tony stops in his tracks, hand only a foot from the girl’s arm; a chill spirals down his back. She freezes, too, and then scrambles away from him. It keeps ringing, the nauseating sound pulsating through the room, and Tony can feel the blood drain out of his face and gather in his chest, weighing him down. _ No _ . The girl doesn’t look victorious or smug, even; in fact, she looks just as scared as he feels. She looks _ young _ then, in her wide, scared eyes and her shaking limbs. 

She looks like Peter.

The girl glances in the direction of the phone, swallows, and then looks at him. He doesn’t want to look at the TV or the phone; he shakes his head a little, blinking, and when he gets up, the dizzying world tilts on its axis, and he crashes straight into the nearest table, stomach tightening with dread. The only thing that kept him running was his anger, and now that that’s died in anticipation of another phone call, all he feels is weak. His limbs quiver helplessly, and now he’s floored on his side like he was when he woke up today, crushed by the unspeakable weight of his thoughts. Tony fucked up...badly. What would Charlie do to Peter now that he’d tried to attack the girl? What was he thinking? What, was he going to attack a girl probably the same age as Peter? 

His legs shake; battered shame flushes through him, forming aching stones in his throat and stomach. Now he has to answer for what he’s done, and Peter will pay the price.

He struggles to get back up, and when he does, he has to grip the lab table for support. Tony forces himself to look to the phone, finding not only that the ringing has stopped, but that the girl has picked up the phone and is holding it to her ear. She stares at Tony, and planets cease to orbit in her irises. “Hey,” she says into the receiver, all the while watching Tony with this helpless, conflicted gaze, “it’s me.”

Garbled, angry shouts grate on the other end.

“No, he wasn’t. He—no—I’m fine, I promise. He wasn’t trying to hurt—”

More shouting.

“No—no, don’t do that! You can see him, too, can’t you? He’s on the ground, he’s not, like, a danger to anybody. He’s just sick.” What is she doing? Sweat trickles down his neck and from his armpits as his dread of the situation builds. “No, no, he didn’t. He was just confused. Like, uh, feverish.” She frowns, eyeing the prototype on the floor a few feet from her worn pink Converse. “No! No. Seriously. I think I should stay with him.” Stay with… “He can wait in the car—seriously, I can help him finish the prototype and everything. He’s in no shape to do it by himself.”

Frustrated talking.

“Yeah. No. You can watch the whole time. I’m just trying to help the process, just—” Her eyes meet Tony’s. “I know. Yeah. I will. Yeah.” The corners of her mouth settle into a firm line. “Ok. Got it. Thanks.” Her shoulders fall. “Love you, too. Yeah, I got it. Bye.”

Then she puts the phone back into its cradle like she’s placing a baby in its carrier. 

Instinctually, Tony glances at the TV screen; it’s black, thank God. “Wh-what was that?” Tony manages.

The girl’s gnawing on her lip. “I got you till five.”

“To what?”

“Finish the job.”

* * *

**MAY 8 — 3:28 AM**

Behind his eyes, the world bleeds, white to red to black and back again. Pain bubbles over his skin and drenches him, seeping into his bones like a cold bath. One piece at a time, his senses return to him. He’s laying on his back with his hands folded over his stomach; when he twitches his fingers, blood slides between them. His head swims with pain. Maybe Charlie used his hammer again. He strains, but he can’t move without searing pain spiking through his stomach. His memories of the past couple of days are so...blurry.

Someone is whimpering in the corner, and he remembers—_ Cassie _. His lips feel numb, but he mumbles, “Cassie?”

Across their shared cell, a little girl curled in a ball stops her crying and sniffles. “Peter?” She can’t crawl, not with her bad hand, but she half-scoots over to him on one hand and two knees until she’s only a foot away from him. Tears glisten in her eyes, shining in the fluorescent light flickering above them. “You wouldn’t wake up,” she whimpers. “I thought—I thought—”

“I’m okay,” he groans. “Don’t...worry.”

“You were bleeding so _ much _, Peter!” 

“I know, kiddo. You’ve seen me bleed...before, though, right? I was...fine then, I’ll be...fine...now.” Every word gets more difficult to say, every breath shallower than the last. There’s so much pain piled in his gut that it’s even hard for him to concentrate. “What…” Through the weeks they’ve been here, Cassie and Peter have had to make something of a life for themselves, and part of that means picking up their broken pieces after Charlie and their other captors have had them. Sometimes, that means Cassie relaying the past day to Peter after a particularly hard session with Charlie; sometimes, it means he sings her songs and tells her stories so that she’ll forget that she might not ever see her family again.

He looks down at his stomach, where something went in, probably a knife, down near his right hip. He’s lucky they didn’t hurt Cass that time, but honestly, he can’t remember. It’s all so… slippery in his mind. “They didn’t,” he starts, and when he moves, his muscles scream, so he slumps back to the floor. “...touch you, did they?”

She shakes her head. Her knees stay curled up to her chest, and she sniffs again, upset. “No. Just you.”

He relaxes a little. If there’s nothing he can do here to help Mr. Stark or anyone else, at least he can protect Cassie. She’s only seven—she’ll be eight in June—and she doesn’t deserve this. No one does. Under his sweatshirt is a mass of something; as she lifts it to get a better view of his injury, he finds a ratty hoodie bundled up against the source of the bleeding. It’s now that he notices she’s missing hers. “Can you tell...me what happened?”

Cass looks like she’s gonna start crying again, but she’s become somewhat hardened over the past weeks. “Yeah… Charlie...got you. When you came back, you were bleeding. A lot. I had t’put my jacket on it. And your head was bad, too. Did Charlie use the—the—” She doesn’t have to say it.

“Yeah, Cass. It doesn’t feel” —he winces, nauseous— “too good.”

She scoots closer to where he lies and touches his head gently. They’ve done this many times before; Peter turned it into a game so it’d be easier to remember. _ It’s called Poke _ , he said, and when she asked how to play, he explained, _ If you can see red on my head, then that means there’s something wrong. _

_ But there’s red all ove— _

_ I know, I know… That’s why we’re gonna play, okay? _

_ O-o-okay. _

_ You’re gonna, _ he continued, _ take your finger, and gently, gently, you’re gonna poke at my head. _ Her eyes went wide. _ And I’m gonna say numbers, from one to ten, and once we get to the highest number I’ll tell you to stop. _

_ Why? _she asked, still shaky from seeing the blood on Peter’s head. 

Peter grimaced. _ Because we’ve gotta figure out where it hurts the most so we can fix it. _

Now, Cassie pokes and prods, and Peter tells her how much it hurts. “Two. Three. Four—ah! Seven, seven, okay, that’s it…” 

She knows what to do; she gets water from the sink and rinses out the most painful spot on his head before pressing a bandage to it. “Sorry I didn’t do it before, Peter… You were sleeping.”

“It’s okay... “ he tells her. “You did good… Promise. Really good. Just keep...pressing on it.”

“There’s more blood this time. And more on your tummy, too.” It’s so strange, the way she says it, 

Peter winces. “I know…” He can’t remember what he did to earn this kind of punishment. His head and limbs are tingly from loss of blood, and when he looks at the wound, removing Cassie’s balled-up hoodie, it’s a severe gash. He’s no doctor, but he’s seen enough _ Supernatural _to know what counts as deadly, and this one’s awfully close. Charlie tends to save his more extreme methods for days when either Peter or Mr. Stark has done something to warrant it. So what happened? “Can you go over...to the Treasure Chest...Cass?”

She nods, crawling back over to their Treasure Chest. Cassie insisted they call it that, even though, as a dented metal bucket bolted into the floor, it looked nothing like a treasure chest. However, it does contain every good thing they currently possess, mostly the little things slipped in with their food by those who took pity on them. Gauze. Candy. Advil. Bandages. Needle and thread. Stickers. Children’s Tylenol. Disinfectant. Mostly, it comes from the one who gives them their food every day: Ava.

She’s the only person in this place who doesn’t treat them like absolute shit. She’s an addict like the rest, that’s for sure, but she always slips little gifts in with their food. Toothpaste. Soap. Medicine. Snacks. He doesn’t know where she gets all of it, but it’s clear that she’s a little like them. There’s this pain that patters behind her eyes, but it’s the pain of a victim, not an aggressor. Her steps are hesitant, not angry like Charlie’s. They always know when she’s coming. Ava gives them the blessing of cavity-free teeth, lessened pain, and full stomachs on those wonderful, random days.

They keep all of their special treats in what Cassie named their ‘treasure chest.’ In it, they put the toys from their Happy Meals, the medicine, the reused bandages, and all of the other gifts they’ve been given. They only open it when they absolutely need to, because their supplies are worryingly limited. “What should I get?” the little girl asks. 

“The blue bottle” —he automatically moves to point, but sorely regrets it as pain rocks his entire torso, hissing sharply— “and the needle...stuff. See it?”

There’s not much to rifle through in the Treasure Chest, so, as Peter expects, she says, “Um, yeah.”

“...good.”

The past month in this place has been like hell. They tend to stay away from Cassie, which is good, but the people who are holding them captive don’t care very much _ how _ they’re keeping two kids alive. They eat McDonald’s three times a day unless Ava gives them something else, and it’s not enough for Peter’s fast metabolism (something he’s yelled through the food slot when the hunger pangs sift through his head and squeeze into his belly in mad desperation), but he has to deal with it. Three Happy Meals a day. That’s it. That’s all they get. Each one comes with a toy, which is one of their few blessings in this place, so inside their Treasure Chest is quite a collection of different toys from their first month here—toys with _ National Geographic Kids _ imprinted on the bottom, mostly, tigers and frogs and stingrays. He was never one of those animal-obsessed kids—he’d always say his favorite animal was a dog, but Cassie knows them all by heart. _ That’s a bottlenose dolphin, _she told him, holding out the plush toy to him with a smile. 

_ Yeah? _ he asked, because Cassie doesn’t smile a lot these days, _ what do they do? _

Cassie’s smile grew even bigger. _ They’re like porpoises! But they’re… _ She can talk about animals for hours on end (sometimes, she does), and Peter never grows tired of it. It’s hard to keep his hopes up these days, especially with the extensive damage to his body and their failed escape attempts.

However, as they moved into May, their Happy meals stopped coming with animals and instead came with miniature games wrapped in plastic. Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Connect 4 and other things. Cassie was hesitant at first, but she quickly realized it meant they could play games that she didn’t have to picture entirely inside of her mind. She _ loved _Hungry, Hungry Hippos, even though only one of her hands was able to play it. Yesterday, they even got a game of Trouble with their burgers. Or was that last week?

It’s so hard to remember things now.

He worries, sometimes, that he’s forgetting what they look like—Mr. Stark, Aunt May, Ned, MJ… Even Flash. He can’t bring Flash’s face into his mind, and that scares him to his core. This is their thirty-third day inside of this room, and it’s hard to believe that they’ll get out anytime soon. They found a loose nail under

the bed—with it, they keep track of the days, to the best of their ability, by making shallow scratches in the leftmost wall, by the sink. Their scratches are horizontal, in groupings of ten. _ Why don’t we make it up and down? _ Cassie asked him once he started making the tic marks in the wall. _ When I do them, they always go up and down. _

Peter didn’t know how to explain it to her. The entirety of the back wall, the one behind their bed, is covered in tic marks. Some of them are grouped together, yet some aren’t, almost like there have been different people inside of this room before. He didn’t know how to say if they stayed here for a long time (if they were never rescued), then he didn’t want their tic marks to get mixed up with the ones of prisoners from the past. 

How is he supposed to explain that to a seven-year-old girl?

Cassie’s coming over to his side now, holding the bottle of disinfectant and the needle and thread. His hands are shaking; he holds them out to her, thanking her weakly as he takes the items from her. “It’s bad?” she says, quieter.

She knows it’s bad because Peter tries never to use their stash of supplies.

He blinks in defeat. “...yeah. It’s bad.”

Although he’s done it a few times since they arrived, suturing his wounds closed (like some kind of teen-movie Frankenstein) doesn’t get any less scary. Especially now, with his swimming vision and shaking hands, but the practice does make the act itself easier. He’s no seamstress, nothing like May with all her revamped, thrifted clothes; why is it suddenly funny to him that the only thing he’s ever sewed is his own skin?

He has her talk to him as he does it—otherwise, he gets lost in the pain and the blood and can’t pull himself out. “Why did he…get me so...bad this time?”

Cass looks wounded as she answers, tucking her greasy, dark hair behind her ears. “You don’t remember it?”

“No, Cass…”

“We… You…” Miserable, she stabs at the floor with her fingers. “We tried to get out again.”

He blinks. “Wha—I…” He closes his eyes for a second, pausing in his process, as he tries to remember.

“Escape Plan,” Cassie reminds him, with a capital P. “Remember?”

“No… You wanna tell me...what we did?”

She sighs. “It doesn’t matter. We didn’t do it.”

“How...far?”

“We got all the way to the hallway!” She pokes at the floor again. “And then I could hear Daddy so I went to Daddy but he was the other way and you told me not to—”

Fuck. He remembers, all right.“Oh,” he says now, like someone just punched him in the stomach. It’s all there—blurry and drenched in a drug-tainted haze, but it’s there. He remembers screaming _ Cassie—no! _ as she slipped from his grasp and ran for her dad, and how he stared at the doorway, only one guard to get through, and thought— _ I could leave without her _ —and was body-slammed by one of the other guards before his idea could fester into reality. “Oh…” How could he think that—to leave this little girl to fend for herself just so he could escape? It’d be the same as killing her. If he was gone, their leverage over Mr. Stark would be gone, and they wouldn’t need the rest of their hostages. They’d kill them all, most likely. How could he think something so _ horrible _?

After he ties off the thread and slumps on the floor with a pained sigh, he beckons Cassie closer. “I’m sorry we...didn’t make it,” he says. “And I’m sorry...we can’t...see your dad.”

Now she’s crying, but they’ve gotten so used to crying around each other that Peter knows what to do. “C’mere—careful,” he says, and he moves his arm so that she can lie down and curl up in his skinny arms. Once she’s comfortable, he wraps his arm around her and holds her close. “It’ll be...okay,” he tells Cassie, and the little girl cries more, burying her face in his bloodied shirt.

Peter wishes now that there was someone here to tell him everything would be okay, but it’s just him and Cassie. There’s no Mr. Stark to fix everything this time.

He holds Cassie and tells it to her instead.

* * *

**MAY 8 — 4:12 AM**

A clattering noise behind him startles him so much that he jumps to his feet, one hand jumping to his hip. It’s only Maggie, dressed in sweatpants and a towel robe, rubbing her eyes at a pan on the ground. “Sorry,” she says, and Jim drops his hand. “Couldn’t sleep.”

They don’t talk much anymore. Maggie works part-time at a nursing home, but she stopped working once Cassie was kidnapped. She spends most of her time in bed or near-comatose on the couch as the TV flashes in front of her. Only recently has she gotten up and been more productive, visiting the nursing home to put in her hours, going to the police station with him to inquire about their daughter. Yet still, she’s nothing like the woman she was before.

To be fair, Jim isn’t anything like the man he was, either. With Cassie gone, there’s a void in their lives that can’t be filled with booze or sleep or punching bags. Cassie is now a gaping hole in his chest that he can’t make go away, no matter how many times he calls for updates on her case.

“It’s okay,” Jim says with a shrug. He doesn’t look much better, dressed in the same T-shirt he’s been wearing for the past couple days and boxers he’s been wearing for me. The police force put him on temporary stress leave after he recovered from his head injury, so he hasn’t had anything to do but ‘harass the station to no end,’ as his coworker Julia put it. “What time…”

“Four,” Maggie answers. She looks exhausted, and her hair is pulled back in a scraggly half-bun. “I’m gonna make...breakfast. You want anything?”

She’s swaying on her feet.

Jim shakes his head. “Sit down, honey. I’ll make you whatever you need.” She doesn’t fight him on it; she just slumps into a seat at their kitchen counter and buries her head in her arms. He starts cooking, cracking eggs into a pan and adding shredded cheese, ham, and red peppers to it. This is how Maggie likes her eggs; Jim knows it by heart. He forms it into a messy omelet and slides it onto a plate. “Here. Need anything else?”

Maggie shakes her head tiredly, and Jim goes. Maggie would much rather be alone these days, anyway. He takes his mug of coffee upstairs with him. He’s supposed to be back on the force next week, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do once he is. Once he became Cassie’s father, his whole world changed. Now, he doesn’t know what he is. As a police officer, he knows the statistics. Cassie’s most likely dead, or… Every time he thinks about it he wants to drink until his face goes numb. Julia and the others swear they’re giving him every update they can, but there’s not much evidence to go off of, so there are scarcely any updates at all. 

Maggie’s like a ghost, and Cassie is truly gone. 

Without them, Jim is lost.

* * *

**MAY 8 — 5:59 AM**

“Hand me the, uh…”

Riri passes him the screwdriver she’s holding.

Tony takes it from her and then makes a grunt of frustration when it doesn’t work. “No, the, um…” She takes the screwdriver back, replaces the screw head with the smaller one, and hands it back. “Oh...thanks.”

Tony tries to work it, but his hands are shaking so badly that Riri slides the weapon to her side of the lab table and does it herself, twisting each screw into place. “What’s wrong with your hands?” she asks. There's been light conversation between the two of them for the past few hours, usually _ pass me that _ or _ don’t touch that, _but conversation nonetheless. 

“Nothing,” the middle-aged man snaps, and he slides over to the computer. “FRIDAY—” He stops, falters, grumbles again, and staggers to the other side of the room. He doesn’t look good. Riri’s seen her fair share of broken men, and Tony Stark is one of them. He looks tired to the bone, hunched over his computer now, typing clumsily. 

She clears her throat. “Do you think this one’ll work?” she asks, just to ease the tension. 

“No.” He finishes tapping at the keyboard and returns to the table.

“No?” Riri doesn’t know a lot, but she does know about Tony Stark. He was her icon—that’s what makes this so strange. After Riri’s brother Eric was killed doing drug deals, she lived with a foster family that saw her love for robotics and computers and catered to it. They got her her first Iron Man poster and took her to coding classes, where she learned as much as she could before Charlie came back into her life. “Wha—are you even, like—what?”

Tony Stark ignores her.

Riri frowns. “Mr. Stark…” He gives her such a rigid glare that her voice dies in her throat.

He keeps tinkering with it, sliding parts into place until finally he raises it. It seems mostly finished, but he says, “None of them will work the way your friend wants them to.”

“He’s not my friend,” she responds quickly.

Tony lifts the weapon with both hands, points it at the wall, and fires with a blazing explosion of light. “So you’re not… helping them...torture my…”

“No,” she interrupts. “I’m not like them.”

Tony scoffs darkly. “Sure.”

“It’s true! I’m—” The truth is, she doesn’t really know who she is. Sure, she ran away from her family to join Charlie and his friends, but it wasn’t because she wanted to hurt anyone. She just missed her brother and thought that, well, Charlie would make some of that aching pain go away. He didn’t. All he ever managed to do was dig her grave even deeper. And now he’s got her mixed up in this… “I just…”

“You just what? Help?” he snaps. “Watch as...they do all that?”

“No! You’ve seen what they do—I hate it! I wanna be in school, I’d rather be anywhere else! What they’re doing to Parker—”

“_ Peter _.”

“Yeah, Peter, sorry, and Lang and that little girl—it’s horrible! I never thought they’d—they’d ever do something like that! I just wanted a _ family _, that’s all.”

He frowns. “How old are you?” he asks. 

“Fifteen,” she answers. 

His eyes are like shattered glass. “Then why…” He shakily adjusts a wire with some pliers. “...are you...with them? You could...”

“They’re my family,” she says simply. It was true. Charlie and Renee and their friends had taken care of her ever since she left her foster family, providing her with food, shelter, people who cared about her well-being… Sure, most of them were drug addicts, but they were the last connection she had to her late brother. “I can’t just leave them.”

“They’re torturing my _son_,” Tony Stark chokes out, and his hands are shaking more now. Riri didn’t know Peter was his _son_—Jesus Christ. “How can you just…”

She ducks her head; shame flickers through her. It’s something she thinks about a lot. How can she stay with them, knowing all the shit they do? Knowing they tortured people? Tortured kids? She’s not a bad person, but does staying with them make her one? Charlie and everyone else…are they bad people, too? “I… I don’t know. I guess… They’re the only people I have left.”

Stark stares at her for a couple more seconds, but he doesn’t say anything. They sit in silence, Riri with her palms sweating as Stark adjusts the gun. He finishes fixing the weapon on his own, screwing a metal plate in place, and finally sets it down. “I think it’s done,” he says.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t work—”

“It won’t.” He sighs. “What Charlie wants… I don’t know if I can make it for him.”

“He just wants your, you know…” She gestures over at a dead Iron Man suit that’s stationed, limp, in the corner of the room. “...arc stuff. Just like HYDRA had.”

“HYDRA had a Tesseract.”

“A what?”

“It’s had…” He scratches his graying hair. “...many names. It’s advanced, alien technology—something I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to replicate.”

“But your arc—”

“—gets close to it. I keep trying to strengthen it, but I don’t know...if I can ever…” He coughs. “...get close to what Charlie wants. Disintegrating people. Making it so they...never existed.”

“He doesn’t want to disintegrate anyone,” Riri assures him. Charlie’s no killer. “He just wants...the power, you know? The bigger stick.”

Tony gives her another fiery glare and doesn’t respond to her comment. “Take it,” he says, pointing to the weapon sitting between them. “It’s done. Bring it back to him.”

For some reason, she doesn’t want to take it. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Tony Stark—the merchant of Death, Iron Man, billionaire, Avenger, the world’s greatest hero—looks at her with teary eyes and a broken face, and shakes his head.

* * *

**MAY 8 — 7:34 AM**

Scott hums as he works, scrubbing over the metal chair. He doesn’t get a lot of supplies from his captors, but they give him plenty of water and soap, enough to clean up the room after each nightly session. “Can’t be messy,” he reminds himself. “Can’t be...messy…” He laughs a little, to himself. 

He can almost hear Cassie’s little voice behind him, squealing, “Daddy! I made a mess, I made a mess!”

He turns his wheelchair around and spots her, there, wearing her shark pajamas, her dark hair tied back into two braids. “What’d you do, Cassie-pie?”

She raises her hands, giving him a big smile. “Me and Jim were painting, see?” They’re covered in bright blue, and as Scott glances around the room, he sees it all; she has made quite a mess.

“I see,” he says, smiling. “We’ll have to get that cleaned up right away, before Mommy sees, right? Where’d Jim go?”

“He went to wash his hands—look, I’m all blue!”

“Yeah, you’re really blue,” Scott answers. “Lemme help you clean up, honey—c’mere.”

She giggles and climbs into the big chair. “Sorry, Daddy!”

“Don’t worry about it—we’ll wash it all out, I promise. Think you can stay still for me?” She nods, still as he washes the blue from her hands and the streaks of paint off of her face with gentle strokes. Is the soap okay for kids? He and Maggie always buy the kind that doesn’t sting if it gets in her eyes. Cassie hums carelessly. “What’re you humming, Cassie-pie?”

“Lucy,” she replies pleasantly. Yes. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, Cassie’s favorite song of all time. Somehow, she could remember every word of the song, even the strangest of lyrics.

“Ah,” Scott says, and he joins in, humming loudly to the lyric about _ cellophane flowers of yellow and green… _

“Shut the hell up!”

Scott jolts at the sudden voice, glancing at the chair where Cassie was and starts humming faster and faster, hoping his little girl will come back. 

A door slams open. “Who the fuck are you talking to, anyway? The computer?”

Scott scrubs harder at the blood-splattered metal. “She… She…”

“Answer me, dammit! Can’t we get one second of peace without you going completely fucking crazy?” 

Scott shakes his head, shakes it hard. “She’s… Hm…” He can see glimpses of her in the corner of his eyes, but he refuses to look. “Don’t touch her, y-you… can’t…” He shakes again.

The man approaching him—Jon, he recognizes, one of the younger ones—waves from beside him. “What is it, Lang, huh? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“D-don’t—”

Jon kicks at Scott’s wheelchair, sending him wheeling back into the wall, and Scott squeezes his eyes shut. “I didn’t—please, I didn’t—”

“Shut up!” he shouts. “Any more of this, and I’ll go get your kid and—”

“N-n-_ no! _”

“That’s what I thought—so keep quiet, Lang!”

He nods furiously, eyes open. Jon slams the door to the room, and Scott’s alone again. 

It’s better alone, he knows, because whenever they’re here, the room is filled with screams, and the chair is stained with blood. Cassie’s blood. Peter’s blood. His blood.

He keeps scrubbing.

* * *

**MAY 8 — 8:04 AM  
**

A book slams on the table in front of him beside his plate of untouched cafeteria food, and he jumps. “Uh—”

It’s a Stephen King novel—_ Misery _, he reads on the worn cover—and it belongs to two brown hands in two gray sleeves of a sweater dress belonging to one Michelle Jones. “That’s it. I’m done with this. Come on—we’re getting out of here.”

“Dude,” Ned replies tiredly, “I’m still eating my lunch, the—”

“Let’s not kid ourselves, _ Nedward _,” she snaps, throwing his half-done homework into his backpack and lugging it over her free shoulder. “You’re not gonna touch that stuff—Jesus Christ, what do you have in here, bricks?”

“Books,” he mumbles. And although she hates how she says it, she’s right. He’s less hungry these days—he either eats until he’s stuffed himself silly or forgets to eat altogether. These days… He lives from one day to the next, shuffling to each class with his head down, unable to focus on his next task. There’s still a box full of Legos for a Quinjet that he and Peter never finished. _ Dude—it’s the Quinjet _ ! he exclaimed when they spotted it online. _ Haven’t you, like, ridden in it? _

Peter’s eyes were as big as saucers, and he tapped on the screen of Ned’s laptop. _ I wish, Ned—that’s so cool! Wow, it’s got the turbine fans and everything! Man, I wish Mr. Stark would let me ride in it sometime. _

_ Dude, dude, dude! If he lets you ride the Quinjet you gotta ask to take me, too, okay? _

Peter elbowed him. _ Of course! I’ll never ride without you, I swear. _

Ned aches at the thought of his best friend, but MJ keeps tugging at his arm. “Fine, whatever, let’s go.”

He sighs. “Lunch isn’t finished—”

“I’ve got food, don’t worry about it. Now get your butt up.”

Clearly, MJ is not planning on letting this one go, so Ned sighs, wraps up what he can of his lunch, and shoves it into his backpack. “Where are we going?” he grumbles, starting to stand up.

MJ doesn’t answer, stomping through the hallway like she’s about to flood it with stormtroopers. Ned follows, turning corner after corner until they make it to the art room, which is empty of any other students. The room is strewn with paintings and sculptures and sketches, some of which Ned immediately recognizes as MJ’s unique drawing style. There’s even a pencil drawing of Peter and Ned hanging in the corner. Ned swallows.

MJ sits him down at one of the wide art desks and then turns the chair next to them so that she’s facing him. “Okay,” she starts, “I know about Peter.”

Ned’s too exhausted to feign surprise; instead, he just hardens in irritation. “Yeah, he’s gone for a research program—”

“—in Alaska, yeah, I remember what you said, but I’m sick of you lying to me, dude.” She looks stern, nothing like the usually apathetic MJ that he knows. “That’s bullcrap, and I don’t think I have to explain to you all the reasons why it makes no sense.”

Ned shrugs his shoulders. “I told you the truth already, MJ. You’re making a big deal outta nothing.”

MJ glares at him. “Ned—we’re _ friends _ . I don’t,” she huffs, “have many of those. And the ones I do, they’re my friends because I _ trust _them. That means I know when you’re lying—I’m not stupid. I figured out Peter’s Spider-man.”

Ned snorts, but his face warms. “Peter’s not Spider-man. Spider-man’s gotta be, like, a college student or something. Have you seen the videos? He can, like, throw cars and stop trains and stuff. Peter can barely manage three pushups in gym class.”

“Ned…” She frowns, flipping the rest of her natural hair over her shoulder. “I remember the weekend before he left for his ‘research program’ or whatever. You hadn’t heard from him. And that Monday, remember that?”

“Yeah, well, he forgot to tell me when he was leaving for the program, so what—”

“So you didn’t _ know, _ ” she emphasizes, scooting her chair forward. She examines his face. “I know what you look like when you’re freaking out—you do it before every decathlon competition. And you were _ freaking out _.”

Ned shrugs. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

She huffs again. “Do I really have to spell this out for you, Leeds? You don’t have to keep covering for him—”

“I’m _ not _—”

“—because I know! The day Peter left for his ‘program,’ Spider-man stopped showing up to save the day. The crime went up, Ned. I’ve done my research. Robberies, muggings, kidnappings, _ everything. _Spider-man’s not around anymore.”

“I know that,” Ned mumbles, and he fiddles with his sweatshirt, trying not to look at her. How does she know so much? He guesses he shouldn’t be surprised; MJ’s the smartest one on the decathlon team (that’s why she’s club president), but he never thought this would happen. “That doesn’t mean…”

“Plus, I’ve heard you guys talking about Spider-man before. You never shut up about him.” She chuckles nervously. “Before this, I thought you guys were just, like, obsessed with him—like Flash is—but turns out it’s ‘cause Peter _ is _him. It’s awesome!”

Ned lets out a frustrated breath. “Can you just let this go?” he says, disgruntled. “So, great—you think you’ve figured out the big secret, that some high school kid in Queens in Spider-man. Congratulations. Can I go now?”

MJ, who’s looking a little pleased with herself now, blinks in surprise. “Dude,” she says firmly. “I didn’t bring you here just to talk about Spider-man.”

“Then what do you want to talk about?” he snaps. “‘Cause lunch is literally gonna end soon, so if you don’t have anything important to say, I’m gonna go finish my lunch somewhere else.”

Instead of that half-triumphant expression she had on just a moment ago, MJ’s face now fades to dejection. “Dude,” she says again, “I wanted to talk about _ you _.”

Ned shakes his head. “Me?”

“Yeah, I—”

“Well, I’m fine. Are you done?”

MJ holds fast. “No! No, dude, I’m not done! You’re not fine!” 

Ned rolls his eyes, but inside him, his heart starts to race. “Oh my god—”

“You barely talk to anyone anymore,” she starts, flustered. “To me or any of the others. You rarely come to decathlon practice, and I’ve seen you sulking in the band room when you were supposed to be in calc!”

_ Sulking? _Ned glances at the clock above the paint-spotted door. How much more of this will he have to take?

“Ever since Peter left for his thing, you’ve been...seriously depressed.”

“I’m not _ depressed _,” he barks. “I miss my best friend—is that a crime?”

Taken aback, MJ shakes her head. “No, Ned. Of course not. I just… I know what you’re going through, okay? That’s what I wanted you to hear. I miss him, too. But he’s Spider-man, he’s probably off doing Avengers stuff with all the rest of them, you know? He’ll be okay, I believe he’ll be okay, I know how you’re feeling—”

“Just _ stop_, MJ. You don’t know _ anything _ about what I’m feeling!” He stands up, and his teeth press together so hard that he can feel them grind. “There’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing going on, so just leave it alone! You’re always trying to find the conspiracy, aren’t you? Always trying to get to the bottom of things, but there’s _ nothing here, so drop it!” _As if on cue, the bell rings, alerting the whole school to the start of the passing period, so Ned heaves his backpack onto his back, holding the straps, and heads for the door. “Stay out of my life, MJ. It’s none of your business.”

She stands before him, mouth slightly open. But before she can say anything else, he walks out into the crowd of students, desperately hoping she’ll forget all about Peter and Spider-man.

* * *

**MAY 8 — 10:15 AM**

Pepper never wants to eat eggs again. As they climb up her throat and she vomits into the toilet, the rancid taste of them seems infinite. As someone raps softly on the bathroom door, she clutches each porcelain side and vomits again. “You okay in there?”

It’s Rhodey’s voice. He’s at the house too often now, checking up on her and asking for updates about Tony. He’s gone over to the lab a couple times to try to coax Tony out without any luck. 

He knocks again, but he doesn’t open it. “Need anything?”

She’s already at the sink, nausea twisting in her belly as she rinses her mouth with tap water. “No,” she says.

“You sure?”

She dries her face with a towel and finally opens the door. _ My old life back _. “Yeah,” she says instead. 

Later, when they’ve settled in the living room, Pepper under two blankets on her laptop as Rhodey flips through news channels. “I thought you said it was food poisoning,” he comments, stealing a glance at her from the other side of the couch.

He’s been staying with her for a couple of weeks, ever since she told him about what Tony did. Even if he’s not sleeping at the compound, he still heads upstate just so he can check on her. “A stomach bug, then,” she says without looking at him. “It’ll go soon, hopefully.”

“Okay…” he responds. He’s giving her that look, the I-know-you’re-lying-but-I-won’t-call-you-out look. “You know, my sister used to get really anxious in high school, and” —he gives up on the news channels, clicking Netflix open on the television— “her stomach got upset whenever she was really stressed out—she’d throw up before tests, that kind of thing.”

She scoffs. “You think this is stress?”

“No—I didn’t say that. Just…”

“What do I have to be stressed about, Rhodey? The company’s doing great, Tony’s out of the picture, I have a lot more free time—”

“Pepper,” he sighs.

“What?”

“Let’s not pretend, okay? I know you’re still thinking about Tony—hell, I am, too. I’m worried sick about you and worried sick about him—”

“I’m _ not _thinking about him,” she snaps. “Until he stops hiding out in his lab like a scared toddler, I don’t need to think about him, and it doesn’t look like he’s coming out any time soon.” 

There is, of course, the elephant in the room. Tony hit her. It’s the reason she won’t go back to the lab to check on him and the reason why she refuses to talk to Rhodey about him, but it’s there. Rhodey already knew about it—he was the first one she called when she got back to the house, crying, holding an ice pack to a cheek that would probably not even bruise.

“Of course you’re thinking about him,” Rhodey sighs. “I know how much he means to you—and I know you’re still thinking about it.”

“That was _ weeks _ago—”

“Pepper,” he says firmly, “what he did changed everything—it’s not going to be that easy to forget.”

Her throat tightens. She keeps replaying the slap in her mind, just like she used to, trying to figure out what she did wrong. It’s so hard to remember that she didn’t do anything to deserve it that sometimes, she chooses to block it all out instead. “Well, what” —her traitorous throat clenches again— “do you suppose I do? Go and beg for forgiveness? I’m not that kind of person anymore.”

“You haven’t been that person in a long time,” he agrees, “and I wasn’t suggesting anything like that. I just… I think maybe… Maybe something’s wrong.”

“Obviously, something’s wrong—Tony broke his _ goddamn _ promise.”

“No,” Rhodey says. “I mean, something’s wrong with _ him. _” He sighs again, running a hand over his recently shaved head. Now, he’s standing up, pacing, and Pepper’s computer is beside her. “The Tony I know would never do anything like that to you—”

“Well, he did.”

Rhodey grimaces. “I know, but he…” He scratches at his chin. “I don’t know. All of this... Being locked in his lab, acting out towards you—”

“He _ hit _ me, Rhodes,” she barks, and this wave of grief hits her as she says it, bringing a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. “This wasn’t a normal fight. He told me he didn’t love me, he told me he didn’t want me, and then he _ hit _me.” Rhodey’s face twists in quieted woe. “I’m not going to sit here and unpack this with you like we’re tween girls at a sleepover, because despite what you think, there doesn’t need to be a reason or an explanation; he did it.” She has to take a deep breath to keep her voice from fading out completely. “He just showed his true colors, that’s all.”

The silence sways between them. She doesn’t look back at him again. She can’t. 

“Fine,” he says after a while. “Then he has to be held responsible.”

“He won’t leave his lab,” Pepper says. “You know that. What are we supposed to do, drag him out of there?”

“If that’s what it takes.” Rhodey faces her. “Tony’s my friend, but he can’t...just hide after what he did. He’s had enough time to feel sorry for himself. He has to take responsibility—for hiding from you and flaking on your company, and for hitting you.”

There’s an anger inside of her, the kind that lights a fire somewhere deep within her but refuses to explode when she needs it to. She stills for a moment, taking in what Rhodey said, and then throws the blankets off of herself. She’s not going to keep moping around the house; she’s gonna face him. He has to know the consequences of what he did. “Then let’s go,” she says harshly, standing up and striding for the front door.

Rhodey’s startled by her sudden movement, and he blinks. “What—”

“We’re gonna get him out of that lab,” she declares, “even if I have to drag that goddamn coward out myself.”

“Pepper, slow down—”

“No,” she snaps. “You’re right—he has to be held responsible for what he did. He can’t keep hiding from us.” She shoves open the door and Rhodey follows close behind her, making small starts of protest. “Now, where do you keep your suit?”

* * *

**MAY 8 — 2:39 PM**

Cassie is jumping up and down on the bed. “Do you think” —one jump— “Ava will” —another jump— “bring us” —third jump— “a treat” —another— “today?”

Peter’s propped up against the wall, half-asleep. “She gave us one yesterday, Cass.”

“Yeah, but” —an overdramatic flop onto their bed— “I want another one! Like ice cream!”

“You know we can’t get ice cream…” he starts. 

“But ice cream always makes me feel better, and it’ll make you feel better!”

Peter lets out a weak laugh. Any more than that and he would send reverberations of pain through his entire torso. “I know, I know… But Ava can’t bring us something like that. It’s too big, remember? Treats aren’t big.” Cassie doesn’t truly understand how everything in captivity works, but that’s the only way that Peter could explain it to her. Ava can’t bring them anything bigger than a band-aid box because, well, Charlie would throw a fit.

Cassie huffs from where she lies. “Can I have a small ice cream then?”

Peter’s body still aches. Usually Mr. Stark is there to pick up the pieces after he gets himself hurt, but now all he has is Cassie. “Cassie…” he says.

He’s using his _ Cassie-you-know-we-can’t _voice, and he’s had to use it enough times in this hellhole that she understands what he means. “Fine.”

Peter’s been living with this seven-year-old for over a month now, and although her tantrums are minimized, he knows when she’s upset. “Wait!” he says, with all the drama he can muster (all his theatre experience being a fourth-grade rendition of _ Peter Pan _). “I think I found something right—oh, right here, in my pocket!”

From her spot on the bed, Cassie perks up. “What!”

“It’s a—a—ice cream scooper!” His voice isn’t as strong as he’d like it to be, but when he’s playing with Cassie, it always grows a little stronger. “Just gotta find...the ice cream…”

Cassie knows this game well; pretending they have things they know they won’t is their best way of passing the time. “Here it is!” she cries, pointing to the door beside him. “Look, it’s vanilla and chocolate and strawberry…” 

Peter holds out his hand to her. “Here, young lady, would you like to scoop out your own ice cream?” He’s not strong enough to get up and make it to the door to play with her, so he’ll have to improvise. “You can have any flavor you’d like.”

Cassie’s brown eyes light up, and she scooches off the bed and closer to him. “Do you have cookie dough?”

He starts to say _ of course _but something in his torso flares wildly, making him utter a choked whimper instead. 

Cassie doesn’t mind. She takes the imaginary scooper from him and makes pleased noises as she makes sweeping motions with her hands, getting scoop after scoop of ice cream.

As soon as Peter comes to his senses, he adds, “Jeez, Cass, how many scoops is that?”

“Twenty-one,” she says promptly, like she's been thinking about it all along. “I took _ all _ the flavors.”

“All the flavors? Well, you gotta be careful—keep it balanced! Careful!”

Cassie takes on an expression of amused concentration and holds her stack of ice cream scoops like it’s Excalibur. “I got it!” Now that Cassie’s engrossed in her ice cream, Peter finally tunes in to what’s happening outside the door: specifically, the voices. 

He didn’t notice them before. It’s not uncommon to hear the conversations of their captors, but having been their captives for weeks now, he knows when they’re getting fucked up. Slurred words, strange laughter, irregular steps… “...in the world!” one shouts, and there’s a strange chorus of agreement. Peter can hear one of them staggering towards their cell door and vomiting, can hear the splatter hit the cement. “We’re gonna be…gonna be….”

“...it’s all gone…” whimpers a second, farther away. “...gone, gone…”

“...heroes!” finishes the first.

“Shut up, shut _ up, SHUT UP!” _ cries a third voice clearer than the rest, and Peter’s heart clenches. There’s no mistaking Charlie’s distinct voice. “I’m the hero! Me! I’m gonna….gonna save the _ fuckin’ WORLD! _Ross can’t take it from me, no—no one can! I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, as long as I get what the world owes me! I’ll fuck up Lang and—and—that freak as much as I have to, I’ll—”

_ They’re not just high, _ Peter thinks, in the split second before it happens. _ They’re dangerous _.

His Spidey Sense (his Peter tingle, May would call it) is going off like a bank alarm, and Cassie’s still standing by him with her hands outstretched, talking about ice cream flavors, so Peter figures out far too late— “MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP!” she squeals.

From down the hall, Peter can hear Charlie’s breathing quicken. 

It happens too fast. Charlie storms down the hallway with a burst of newfound energy enhanced by whatever drug they’re on, and a few of his group follow. He’s screaming something about ungrateful kids and something about Cassie, but their words are so foggy that Peter barely knows what he’s saying. 

This time, he realizes with a distinct touch of horror, he’s not strong enough to protect her. “Iron Man!” he screeches, and Cassie looks up, startled. That’s their code word—he’s telling her, _ get under the bed, hide, I can’t protect you— _

But this time, when the door flings open, there’s someone standing in front of it with her arms outstretched, blocking their way. She’s dark-skinned, or maybe it’s just the light, and depressingly thin, with long, tangled hair and twitching hands. “_ No! _” she snarls, and her twitching worsens. “I won’t let you hurt them, not again! It’s—it’s over!”

“Move out of the _ fucking way, Ava!” _

Another figure moves in front of the door, and Cassie starts crying. “Charlie, stop!” This new voice is young but firm, and the body it belongs to barely reaches Ava’s shoulder. “This isn’t you—they’re just kids!”

“They’re fucking dis_ obeying me! _ They never listen!”

“They’re just playing! Leave them a—” Charlie knocks the smaller girl out of the way with his fist, and she hits the ground, lying there without getting back up.

Peter’s heart races. He knows saying anything will make it worse, so he shuts his mouth. He tries to move towards Cassie but—_ holy shit that hurts— _he can’t. His body is a cage, a cage that Charlie molded with his bare hands. He can’t protect Cassie. He can’t stop Charlie from threatening the one good thing in his life. He’s not Spiderman anymore; he’s too weak. He’s barely Peter Parker anymore. He’s just...a lump of bleeding flesh.

When he looks back up, Ava’s not in the doorway anymore. She’s on the ground, groaning in pain, managing, “Please, Charlie, I—” before Charlie’s fist hits her again. His crew follows suit, pounding the woman into the ground until Peter can hear the squelch of bloody knuckles against her crushed skin.

Cassie cries harder. Thank God she’s not facing the doorway, so she doesn’t have to see all the blood.

But Peter does.

**MAY 8 — 3:30 PM**

As soon as the last bell rings, Ned’s chem class scatters like roaches. His seat is by the door, so when he looks outside and sees MJ glaring at him from the hallway now filling with students, he seethes with a sudden sense of intrusion. What right does she have to invade into his life like this? What he does with his time is his business, not hers.

She weasels her way into the classroom as the other students (and the teacher, who clearly has somewhere to be) flee the room. “What are you doing?” he complains.

“Just gonna walk you to practice,” she comments.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“No, but you do need an escort,” she shoots back. “It’s two days a week, Ned—and you barely come to one now.”

“I’m coming,” he tells her. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Ned—”

“I will!”

She lets out a snort of disbelief. “Even if I’m not your friend anymore” —Ned swallows— “I’m still your captain. Come to practice, dude.” 

“I’ll be right there,” Ned says, adjusting the straps of his backpack. He checks his watch. 3:12—he has to go.

MJ glares at him. “That’s what you said last time, Leeds,” she protests. “And the time before that.”

“I’ll be there!’ he assures her. “Go lead the team—I just have to finish up something for chem. Decathlon can go on without me for a few minutes.”

She gives him a long, hard stare. “Fine,” she says finally. “But if you’re not there in fifteen, I’m putting you on the reserves.”

Ned gives her a thumbs up, and she rolls her eyes, turning on her heel and heading for the auditorium where the decathlon team practices.

* * *

Needless to say, Ned doesn’t return to decathlon practice. He rarely shows up to practice now; MJ’s threatened to kick him off the team at least a dozen times. 

Instead, he takes the subway.

He sits at the back of the car with his backpack hugged to his chest. By now, he knows the route; where to get on, where to get off, and where to walk after he gets off the subway.

He travels all the way to a hospital at the edge of Queens, where the receptionist greets him with a kind smile. “Ned! You didn’t come yesterday!”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, sorry… Wasn’t feeling great.

The nurse smiles at him and gives him a visitor’s pass. “That’s okay, honey. We all have our days.” She waves him away. “Go right ahead—I’ll sign you in.”

“Thanks,” Ned answers, and he pushes through the waiting room of expectant families and anguished friends down the hall, to the elevator, up a couple floors, all the way to Room 317. Once there, he clears his throat and knocks lightly. Someone cracks open the door for him. It’s Trevor, the nurse with long blonde hair who never fails to bring him candy or coffee whenever he accidentally stays too late. “Hey, bud,” says Trevor. “I just did her exercises—how was school?”

Ned shrugs. Trevor’s always so kind, but Ned feels more like a statue than a human being. “Fine.”

“Learn anything cool?”

“Not really.”

“Beat up anyone annoying?”

That gets a low chuckle out of Ned. “I wish.”

Trevor removes his medical gloves in one practiced movement and pats Ned’s shoulder. “Have a good time,” he says.

Ned shrugs again.

As Trevor goes, Ned settles into his usual waiting room chair, the one by the window, and drops his backpack onto the linoleum floor. Unzipping it, he pulls out a handful

of books—a series of Star Trek books that are sort of canon—and sets them on the table beside him. “Hey, May,” he says, staring at the woman in the hospital bed in front of him. “Whaddaya wanna read today? More Star Trek?”

May’s ventilator rises and falls.

“Good choice.” It’s nothing more than the usual jokes he makes, but now, in his dull voice, they fall flat. He cracks open the novel they left off at, and he starts to read. He doesn’t know if she’s even into Star Trek (knowing May, she would be), but it’s the only set of books he owns that could last a long period of time. _ She may never wake up, _ Trevor told him. _ Her brain experienced a lot of stress during her accident—that kind of trauma can put people in clams for months. _ He’d stopped to stare at Ned then. _ But you don’t know her, right? _

_ No! _ Ned asserted, nervous. _ I—um—I just wanna help. Just think everyone should, uh, have some company, at least. Even if she is just a Jane Doe. _To the hospital, May Parker is no one. They found her in a car accident without an ID or any other form of identification (which was strange to Ned in and of itself, because May always brought her purse with her everywhere) with significant head trauma, no driver, and possible signs of struggle in the vehicle. Ned wasn’t able to find out where they had taken her until over a week after Peter’s disappearance, where he promptly remembered what Tony had told him and swore to himself never to tell anyone who May was.

Although May’s situation is dire now, he can’t imagine what it would be like if the bad guys behind what happened found out she was here.

So Ned keeps quiet. He comes to the hospital every day after school, if he can, and talks to her. He’ll read or ramble, but it’s better than staring at her lifeless form and all the tubes, needles, and machines. It’s better to imagine she’s just sleeping. She’s the only person he has right now, and he’s not going to leave her to the wolves. He maintains his little facade: to his mom, he’s at daily decathlon practice; to the hospital, he’s a kind young volunteer; and to MJ… Well, MJ’s starting to see right through his cracks. 

Honestly, Ned doesn’t know if he can keep this up much longer. 

* * *

**MAY 8 — 4:52 PM**

The metal mechanisms in the suit enclose over her bit by bit, starting at her torso and spreading over her body until she’s completely encased in the suit. Watching her reflection in the glass, she moves the limbs of the suit, flexing the mechanisms and practicing her movement. She’s lucky he kept a spare suit in their house in case anything happened there. 

Now, she’ll be the invincible one. 

It’s so hard to think about Tony this way—her enemy, she supposes—when her heart is screaming for him to save him. But how is she supposed to love the person who broke her heart? “We made a promise,” she says, the faceplate lifted so she can glare into the reflective glass. “And you _ broke _it.” That promise meant everything—it’s what makes her who she is today, a woman who can stand with her chin high and say that she’s stronger than her past.

Tony brought it all rushing back.

It’s been weeks, but she can’t forgive him. They buried their trust in each other, through late-night conversations and post-nightmare confessions, like they’d never been able to in past relationships; that was what made them special...or so she thought. She can’t stop replaying what happened in her mind, the way Tony looked at her, the words he said, the way he wound up his hand to hit her, and it’s something that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget. 

She turns the arms of the suit and shifts her feet. “Rhodey,” she calls out, and her friend enters the room, fully encased in his War Machine armor. His feet make massive _ thumps _as he goes, clanging towards her. “Ready to go?” he asks.

“Yeah.” She slams the faceplate down. In the glass, Iron Man stares back at her. 

She raises one gauntlet and blasts the glass with a blinding burst of white light.

“I’m ready.”

* * *

The lab is still on lockdown when they arrive at the front door, their boots torching the brick as they land their suits. Pepper, who’s only been in a suit a few times, has a more rocky landing than her practiced counterpart, stumbling a little once her boots hit the bricks. “It’s still locked up,” announces Rhodey, banging loudly at the metal sheet over the door with his fist. “Maybe I can—” He anchors his fingers at the edge of the doorway, attempting to peel away at its edges. “Nope—this isn’t coming off, Pepper. Got any—”

She blasts the door a few feet from where Rhodey stands.

“Pepper!”

“What?” she snaps. 

He shakes his head as though he’s going to say something, but he remains silent. “Nothing.” He moves away from the entrance. “Let’s just…try knocking first, okay?”

“We’ve tried that enough times,” she declares. “It’s time we get the upper hand.” She raises her hand and, setting her feet, shoots another series of detonations that leave dented, ashy marks in the door. “Come on!”

Rhodey moves back to set her feet beside her, and together, they blast the door to kingdom come. Flames raze the grass at the building’s walls, and the air fills with the thick scent of smoke as they form dents into the metal casing of the door. It goes on for minutes more, but still there’s no response. “Tony, come outside!” shouts Rhodey. “We just want to talk!”

Nothing.

“Tony!” Pepper warms up the gauntlet, and with a particularly strong blast of energy, pounds a big dent into the center of the door. None of it is coming off as she expected it would—their blasts only form marks in the metal. “It isn’t working,” she says.

“If we keep at it,” Rhodey says, his voice muffled behind his faceplate, “then it will. Keep going. We’ll get to him eventually.”

They hammer the door with shots from their gauntlets—annoyed, Pepper says, “Use the one on your back.”

“That could destroy the place,” Rhodey explains. “I’m not going to use it.”

“It’ll be better than this!”

He shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous, Pep—if Tony’s standing behind the door, it could really hurt him.”

“Then don’t you have a higher setting than that? That suit is a weapon of _ war _, Rhodey. Turn it up.”

“I _ can’t _,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

Pepper scoffs. “We’re barely making any progress here—he’s probably sitting in there, laughing at us!”

“Pepper,” he warns, “you know that’s not true.”

“Don’t act like you know him,” she snaps, raising her gauntlet again. “He’s a liar and an asshole. That’s all he’s ever been.”

“We don’t know what happened,” Rhodey presses on. “He’s not usually like this; there must be something—”

The indented metal slides away from the door, whining as it scrapes at the front door. Both Pepper and Rhodey stop where they are gauntlets trained on the door, where it reveals Tony. 

He looks different.

His hair is longer and grayer, speckled with light strands, and his beard is scruffy, not like the well-manicured one he usually has. He’s wearing boxers and a gray T-shirt, but his clothes are spattered with coffee stains and grime. When was the last time he showered? He’s thinner, too, noticeably so, and holy fuck, his eyes… 

It’s like his irises have shattered completely. Pepper knows he’s had moments like this, times when she walks into his lab and he’s rocking slowly, curled up under a lab table, whispering to himself, unable to hide his breakdown even once she arrives to pull him out of it. His hand twitches at his side. The other hand holds a… What is that, a gun? It’s some kind of machine with a handle, exposed wires, and a glowing blue center. There’s an earpiece lodged in his ear and a reddened bruise at the edge of his hairline. “_ Pepper _,” he says, in this croaky half-gasp, and he flinches. 

Holy shit. What happened to him?

The fury that filled her only seconds ago starts to die inside of her chest, but she points the gauntlet straight at him, and Rhodey does, too. “Enough is enough, Tony,” announces Rhodey, lifting his faceplate. “It’s time to come home.”

Tony shakes his head furiously, raising the thing by his side. He’s acting _ strange _, all twitching fingers and slow blinks, and Pepper’s concern is overwhelming her rage. “Y-you shouldn’t—be here!”

“You’ve been in there long enough,” Rhodey continues, “It’s _ time _, Tony. Come out of the—”

“N-_ no! _” Tony raises the machine at his side, and she realizes it’s most definitely a gun. Is that what he’s doing in that lab? “I’m not going any—anywhere—you can’t—make me!” he screeches.

“You’re acting like a lunatic, Tony!” Pepper shouts, and her gauntlet glows with heat. “You can’t keep hiding in there!”

Tony points the gun at Rhodey, then Pepper, then Rhodey again. “I—I’m not—you don’t un—you can’t—I’m _ not leaving! _” Rhodey takes a step toward him and Tony lets out a strangled screech. “Back—get back! Back up!”

“Tony—”

“Get the _ fuck _away from me!”

“That’s it!” Pepper snaps. “We’re taking you out of here whether you like it or not—you can’t keep hiding from what you _ did _—”

Tony’s shaking his head again. “—you—you can’t be here—I have to be alone, I’m a fucking scientist—I have to—I have to work alone, you can’t—_ don’t come any closer!” _ He pulls the trigger and a blast of blue light explodes from the tip of the gun, whizzing past Rhodey’s face.

“Whoa!” Rhodey exclaims, dropping his faceplate. “Tony, whoa, whoa, watch it!”

“You can’t do this to me, you can’t—any closer and I’ll shoot, I’ll fucking kill you all, I’ll do it” —several blasts fire from the weapon, charring the earth— “_ GET BACK, I’LL DO IT!” _

“You’re not gonna kill anyone, Tony,” Rhodey says, inching closer and closer to the man in the doorway. “You just need some sleep—we’re gonna get you checked out, we’re gonna bring you home—”

“NO!”

As Rhodey steps close enough to touch him, Tony takes the gun he’s pointing at his friend and points it up into the soft spot underneath his own chin, holding it tightly in both of his trembling hands. 

Pepper’s heart stops in her chest, and both she and Rhodey stop talking.

“Any—any closer—and I—I’ll pull the _ trigger! _”

Rhodey puts his hand up. “Tony,” he says, breathless. “Put the gun down.”

Tony jams the weapon further into his chin. “Don’t fucking _ move!” _

“We’re not moving, Tony, just—just put it down. Let’s talk.”

“I said d-_ don’t move! _I’ll—I-I—”

Pepper’s frozen in place. She’s not angry anymore; she’s terrified. The Tony that’s standing before her right now needs her, but all she’s been doing for the past month is seething at every memory of him. She chokes on his name.

“Put it _ down _, Tony.”

Tears are trickling down his face. “Go—_ get out of here! _ I’ll do it, I’ll fucking do it, I don’t even—even care anymore, I’ll d-d—” His sobs creep into his words until he can’t even get another sentence across. “Get—out—or I-I’ll pull the FUCKING _ TRIGGER!” _

His hands jerk with the force of his words, and Pepper lets out an involuntary scream. She grabs for Rhodey’s metal-encased arm. “Okay, we’re going, Tony, don’t” —she gulps— “do anything, we’re going, okay?” She urges Rhodey back. “Let’s go, Rhodey—now, we’ve gotta go—”

Rhodey’s faceplate is up again. There’s a burned streak across the side of his face from when Tony fired the weapon at him. He’s still gaping openmouthed at his best friend. “Tony…”

Pepper pulls at his arm, and finally, Rhodey backs up, one robotic step at a time. 

As they go, Tony stands there with the gun stabbing into his chin, legs shaking, watching them. The entire way back, Pepper can still hear Tony crying.

Something is really wrong here.

**MAY 8 — 6:34 PM**

“Julia?”

Maggie watches as Jim’s face takes on a strange expression. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Okay. Yeah.” He looks at Maggie, wide-eyed, and says, “Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. We’ll—we’ll be—be right there. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Okay. Bye.”

Maggie stares at him and pulls her cardigan tighter around herself. 

“That was Officer de Paz,” Jim gulps. “She says… They’ve got a lead on Cassie.”

“A...lead? Are they—where? What is it?”

Jim’s already shoving his feet into his shoes. “They haven’t found her, but they found a body—not Cassie—dropped in Lake Champlain, on the Vermont side. It’s a five-hour drive.”

“Why—who is—who is it? What does it have to do with—with Cassie?”

“It’s not Cassie, they told me that,” he explains, “and they’re still running tests, but so far all they’ve got is that she’s a black young adult female, and they found some hair and other trace DNA on her—one of which belonged to Cassie.” He tosses Maggie her jacket and picks up the keys. “We gotta go to the site to see if we recognize anything—anything that could help us find Cassie.”

“O-okay. Let’s go.”


End file.
